Hip-hop artist explores evolution of spoken word
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What's the focus of your workshop?
We're going to talk about poetry in general as far as it being a valuable and needed art form. We will go more in-depth about the performance of poetry through the years, how it's changed, how it's evolved going back to the beat poets of the '50s on up through the civil rights poetry of the late '60s and early '70s. We'll get into the hip-hop in the '80s. ... Then, going into 2000, we had all of these terrorist attacks and things that changed the world forever. (We'll discuss) how poets have reacted ... and what poetry needs and where it's going from here.
Why do people who aren't English majors tend to cringe when you mention poetry to them?
I found Nikki Giovanni's works when I was 15 or 16 years old. And before that, I was kind of like everybody else, I guess. Poetry was something you read in English class, you know, Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson ... Robert Frost. I've always had an interest in their words, their colors. That's been in me since the beginning, so I've always had an attraction to it, but it didn't relate to me. It didn't tell the story of what I saw growing up in New Orleans. ... Once I found Nikki Giovanni, to me, she was hip. She was cool. ... That gave me a motivation to start penning the things I felt. ... My reply to anybody that thinks that poetry is not hip and not cool is to turn on the radio.
You're working on a poetry book called “The Last Poem on the Last Day,” which is kind of a love story. Can you describe it?
We imagine love to be this beautiful, wonderful, perfect thing, but as you're going through life, you realize that love isn't just one color. It's a lot of different colors. ... You follow the love story, but it's not a love story in the Cinderella typical way.
How did your interest in poetry translate into your hip-hop music with Mojoe?
It was definitely the poetry first. The music came from one of my best friends Treson Scipio, who is the co-founder of Mojoe. He was more into the musical thing. I was starting to experiment with performing my poetry with live bands, and he was looking for an outlet for his music and singing. ... I just started experimenting with my craft as a rapper, too.
How would you gauge the San Antonio hip-hop scene?
Anyone who is trying to do hip-hop in San Antonio has to travel outside of San Antonio if they want to continue to grow. ... I don't want to say it's a bad scene because I know a lot of talented people there. But the outlets are not there for us. And if there's one thing that I would hope ... it's that everybody continues to be original.
Jennifer Lloyd | 210SA
What do texting and tweeting, “Jon & Kate Plus 8” and shootings in the news have to do with poetry? Each can morph into poetic inspiration for Charles L. Peters, who may be better known as Easy Lee of the San Antonio-based hip-hop duo Mojoe. Peters will shed some light on the evolution of spoken word at Gemini Ink's Summer Literary Festival. Beginning on Monday, July 13, Peters will lead students through the history of spoken-word poetry in the U.S. from the beat poets of the 1950s to the wordsmiths affected by recent political shifts. Peters, who's originally from New Orleans, published his first book of poetry at age 17 and also got into the poetry slam scene. Now, at 29, Peters has moved to Atlanta but travels back to Texas to perform as part of Mojoe, which recently released the albumDirty Genes and performed at SXSW this year. Peters spoke with 210SA about what sparked his love of poetry, his forthcoming book about love and the happenings of Mojoe.
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