MC - Master this Craft (Flashback)

What would it be to be an emcee? Spoken word, written June 2008.

MC
Trying to M-master this C-craft. Making it mine
Trying to...
Use these freestyle skills to pay my bills
Converting poetry into currency
A penny for my thoughts
For these inscriptions moving through time
For my two cents
Can I get a dime?
Emcees spitting their dope rhymes
Producers getting mental with their ill instrumentals:
J-Dilla. No I.D. Y Not. Pete Rock. 9th Wonder. MF Doom. The Ummah.
Oh ma. I mean oh my...
God, why am I struggling?
Striving
By any means
By all means
I'm using, you're losing.
I mean I'm losing...me
Trying to be an emcee
This isn't my usual s-t-y-l-e
Steelo. Steez. Steezo.
Jazo-O before he was Jay-Z
Riding high with Faze-O
These ryhmes are just coming to me
What would my pitch be?
To get my rhyme across
Life after line
On an on
Getting this down 'til the P.M. dawn
Yo, it's not my place
to be writing raps, keeping pace
But with this pen and journal
Something comes from within,
it's internal.
Eternal. Infernal.
An inferno I'm throwing
at you
from my mind
caught up with flowing
Getting low, down
From the subterrain
I'm doing my best to explain
That I couldn't walk up in a room and flow like
Rakim, Talib Kweli, Q-Tip, Prodigy, Cannabis, Guru, Notorious B.I.G., the M-O-S D-E-Finitely,
That's not me, you see,
as a Master of Ceremony
The artist formerly known as Common Sense I'd use for defense
against a lyric attack
from Inspectah Deck or Gza Genius on the track
Kool G Rap got my back
With Raekwon I'd take on
Make noise with the Beastie Boys
Protect my own against Nasir Jones
So you can feel the wrath of Big Daddy Kane
R-A-W
That's how I'd take it to what's out there
Off air
How sweet the sound
I'd come from the underground

Writing as Activism Prompt: May 5 (Last Session)

It was a pleasure, a thrill to host this writing lab at Gemini Ink. Thank you to Gemini Ink for allowing full creative/artistic freedom on this project. Thank you to the "regulars" - Amanda, Haley, and Jonathan - and to all other family and friends for making time to attend class. Thanks to all those out there on the world wide web for following along.
Amanda and Haley will be conducting their own writing workshop in the summer. Will post with updates.

Our last class was cancelled in lieu of the Gemini Ink Big Give S.A. all day reading session. The prompt is posted below. As always, stay tuned and spread the word.

May 5: Revolutions

• Reading Material
  - Lapham's Quarterly Spring 2014 Issue (Featured Text)
  - Color-Coded
  - Political
  - Technological
• Additional Reading Material
  - Revolutions in Reverse (David Graeber)
• Common thoughts
  - Scientific definition, heliocentric
  - Revolution as uprising, insurrection
• 20th Century Legacy
  - Spanish "Civil War" and Anarchism
  - Student movements quelled by state violence and repression
  - "...because we've always moved in the field of morality and love while people have been politically jiving with our lives. And the question is, how do we now move politically and stop trying to move morally? You can't move morally against a man like [that]. You've got to move politically to put them out of business.
  We must begin to think politically and see if we can have the power to impose and keep the moral values that we hold on high. We must question the values of this society..." - Stokely Carmichael
  - Saul Alinsky, community organizing and understanding different modes of power, referent power to people power to political power to legal power. Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) in San Antonio largely reflects the Alinsky model
• Revolutions in Reverse
  - David Graeber collection of essays explains the cycle of social revolutions occurring from people protest in the streets - creating institutions reflective of mission - establishing social relations to maintain institutions, now appears, establishing social relations - creating institutions - people protest in the streets