Saturday, Sept 18
...Black on Black Rhyme Week 2004(continued)
by Paul D

Hazel, Candace, and many other helpers spend all day getting the banquet right! (Thanks to everyone who made the banquet a success. You know who you are!) It was amazing! 78 folks showed up and were looking so lovely! I’m glad we did it in the hood too. (@ Walker Ford Community Center) Everyone was looking so good. Nobody could touch me though. I had on a velvet black suit with a cow boy shirt (with the tassles and everything) It sounds bad but wait til you see the pictures. Had the collar flipped and everything.  See More Images

    
Almost everyone was there: Ali, Candace, Hazel, Keboi, Wally B, LIFE, Lizz, JB, Kensation, Emonde, Source of Passion, Shadow, Maura, Chris, Walt Brown, Talitha, Art, Khadisah, Sierra, Rhonda, Ebony, Harmony, Bro. John, the Uhuru Band, Poetic Magic (from Valdosta, GA), Odyssey, Floyd Boykin (head of Spoken Visionz Magazine)  Sorry if I forgot anyone. The poetry was great! The food was just as good. Candace, Hazel, and the crew made fried fish, spaghetti, candied yams, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, baked chicken, rice, mixed vegetables, turnip greens, and bread. And all of it was off da chain!

The Uhuru band from Tampa layed it down the whole night with many soulful cover songs from Curtis Mayfield to Erykah Badu. The first generation poets got up and talked about how far we’ve come and performed their great poetry. 
 

Keboi got up first and busted out Black on Black Rhyme Part 1. Everyone joined in with the famous lines like “I gets one, I gets two, because I am ghetto. It’s a poetic drive-by and if you don’t want to get hit, you best get low”.

Wally B Somebody got up next and performed Charmione, a touching poem about bringing his daughter into this world.

Ali was next with Hold On about the frustrations of being a poet full-time.

Kensation, Ali’s brother, got up next and did Poetry Loved Me but I Ain’t Love Poetry.

Shadow got up next and gave his relevant speech about the history of Black on Black Rhyme, and then performed one of his signatures, Intertwined.

Source of Passion, one of Black on Black’s newest members of the Rhyme and Reasons Poetry Troupe busted out Turn Up the Volume.

JB performed What if I Didn’t.

Paul performed The Day After Black History Month.

LIFE lit up the crowd with P.I.M.P.

Lizz Straight performed her signature, Ingratuity about the woes of being a black waitress.

Talitha, talented Black on Black supporter, performed her already famous Suicide Attempts.

Poetic Magic from Valdosta also got up and did the dang thang. Last but not least, Mr. Floyd Boykin came all the way from St. Louis to tell us about the dreamer and the visionary. We were very thankful to hear the wisdom he imparted on us about how failure can make you try harder and that we can do whatever we want to do. The conscious rap group, Bombai did their thang as well.   See More Images

I know it sounds like a lot but the night still wasn’t over. We all cleaned up and headed back to Keboi’s house for the second, yeah, I said the second Drive-by of the week, two nights in a row! I know you are probably thinking they had to be tired and yes, we were all exhausted. Some even had to get on the road. But it’s something about poetry and love and respect for this thang that made all of that irrelevant. I tried to take a little power nap but it was too many over there.

We started spitting poetry and went all the way to 3am! What a great time! Thanks to all for an amazing week! Respond and put anything that I may have left off! We miss all who couldn’t be here for whatever reason! Know that we love you and it’s going to be even bigger next year!