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WHERE HAVE I BEEN?
shoot, where haven't I?

...So I walk into my hip hop writing workshop that I teach, 10 minutes late, and Dre, the young hustla/wannabe murdera is already teaching. He sees me run in, but smirks & continues writing the word "COCAINE" on the chalk board. He turns to the class, "If you got 52 grams of pure uncut, how much baking soda do you cut it with?".

The room begins buzzing. Some actually pick up pencils & start scribbling.
"Y'all be talkin' all that sh*t, figure it out"
Half way amused, I lean back against the wall & cross my arms to witness where this is going.
Answers begin flying up, "19 dog" "nuh-uh more like 21, right?
"Nah nigga, do you know how strong some pure columbian shit is? 21's gonna burn a hole in yo head"
"32 then!"

....and this is only Tuesday

A chick hit me up on MySpace recently saying that despite being one of the artists that she had long respected, due to my limited recent output, she didn't think that I was being productive enough .

Several times a week I've been giving hip-hop/spoken word workshops at an alternative school here in Washington DC. Most of these kids are between 14-20 years old, have never been outside of the city much less their neighborhoods, and most are currently going thru the crimminal justice system. Needless to say, this can be a rough group of cats & given their age & upbringing (or lack thereof), their twisted priorities & weak knowledge of hip-hop limits them to heated arguments about "which rapper really used to hustle & who moved the most weight".

On this particular day, After sitting Dre down & clearing the drug lesson from the blackboard, I hand everyone a ditto which elicits groans of "aw f*ck nah!" (these gentlemen don't take well to reading nor writing). The noise quiets down once they realize that I've handed them rap lyrics & I am about to play a CD. Having seen the hip-hop classic "Wildstyle" in class the previous day, they instantly recognize the intro to NAS' "Illmatic".
The next hour and a half was a lovefest, because although these kids knew & liked Nas for his more recent stuff, they had never heard the jewels in this, his 1st project. It seemed like every song hit them in the head & sometimes even in the heart, particularly "One Love" and "Life's a Bitch" the latter of which we broke down verse for verse on paper, somehow finding balance in AZ's nihilistic & incredibly dope 1st verse & Nas' hopeful poetic lyrics on the 2nd. By the classes end, 3 students asked me for burned copies so they could "study" further. Study? These are the same kids who avoid paper & pen like they were allergic to ink (aside from all their tats). Now knuckleheads are telling me they need a pen to write all the hot lines down.

Hey that's a start.

...and that's what I've been doing with my time.

these kids ARE my output.

blackpicasso - 4:56 PM
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2 comments:

Been there,Iworked Special ed in NYC and Daytop Village with the Crips /bloods plus taught writing workshops in Rikers Island.But then Ive been ther myself,I did A 6year sent.for the Feds.I just lost my DJ.to Violenceso Im into the Violence thing with the Brothas gettin smoked Disturbs me.If your in the Mood for music/a litle poetry checkout carolynbaxter.com if your in the mood for excepts from my forth comming books and essay checkout theworldisaGhetto.blogspot.com.more?tagworld.com/rikersislandwear Im sending you all this black Picasso so if you know of anyone a DJ or some sistas or Brothas lookin to to do some serious WORK holla.Ive passed the ''stand-UP no music ''poetry''read after my first book ''Prison Solitary and other free Government Services''a while back.Just finished a CD ''Put your Rhyme where your revalution is'' i do all my own beats/engineering.also I know so cats from DC..''Black Mafia Crew''ever hear of them?in any eventLOVE your WORK/ Holla back carolyn baxter aka ''Kulcha Born''
posted by Carolyn : 12:33 PM - (Main Page)

Oh those other men. oh
posted by Anonymous : 4:23 PM - (Main Page)