Spoken word

I love the spoken word. I love to see how people perform their poems; using gestures and various expressions on their faces as they use the inflections in their voices to demonstrate how they feel. The beauty of the art of expression. I just cant get over it. Well, while I have been away, I decided to take a walk down memory lane, I must say a really long walk back to the year 1970 when Gil Scott Heron first released his famous poem 'This Revolution will not be Televised'.

The title was actually a slogan in the 1960s used by Black Power Movements and I guess this is what made the poem so popular when it was released as a song on his 1970 album. It basically mentions commercials, tv series and icons as examples of what the revolution would not be. If you're familiar with American history and the civil rights movement, you'll understand how art was used as an expression of defiance.

Now I wasn't born till a few years after its release, but during my childhood, I became familiar with the slogan. I didn't understand what it meant but I knew deep down inside of me, that it must have been significant to the African American population who had over the decades fought against racial discrimination. In the late 80s,  I heard extracts of this poem being used in a popular hip hop song by Public Enemy. The slogan was often repeated in the song but as a teenager, I was a lot more interested in the rhythm; when you were clubbing in the 80s and 90s , it was all about the dance steps, you had to show that you had game, that's what was important : ).

Today, I cant help but feel disillusioned with the art forms that are being used to promote greed and degrade women. The world isnt any better than what it was in the 1970s, we may not have the same problems but we still have problems, really big problems. Where are our artists and artistes? What's happened to the spoken word? Where are the slogans? What's happened to our music?

This is why I took that journey down memory lane, trying to recollect what art was and how we can use it today to give succor to the poor and oppressed, to give strength to those on the battle lines and hope to our brothers and sisters fighting Ebola in West Africa. We must not forget the men and women who never feature in the news or even the soft sell magazines but who continually make a difference in the lives of others; we salute you.

Here's some inspiration:


The hells we have lived through and live through still,
Have sharpened our senses and toughened our will.
The night has been long.
This morning I look through your anguish
Right down to your soul.
I know that with each other we can make ourselves whole.
I look through the posture and past your disguise,
And see your love for family in your big brown eyes.

I say, clap hands and let's come together in this meeting ground,
I say, clap hands and let's deal with each other with love,
I say, clap hands and let us get from the low road of indifference,
Clap hands, let us come together and reveal our hearts,
Let us come together and revise our spirits,
Let us come together and cleanse our souls,
Clap hands, let's leave the preening
And stop impostering our own history.
Clap hands, call the spirits back from the ledge,
Clap hands, let us invite joy into our conversation,
Courtesy into our bedrooms,
Gentleness into our kitchen,
Care into our nursery.

The ancestors remind us, despite the history of pain
We are a going-on people who will rise again

Maya Angelou, The Million Man March