Will Evans really blessed us with his presence Tuesday!! Thanks alot Will. And a Xtra Special thank you goes out to our Hylife Poetry Audience who not only came out but made sure he had gas money to make it home and also bought copies of his CD: Measure.
He said he hates poets who perform pieces that aren’t on their CD. Ironically, he did just that to the bemusement of our crowd by performing a piece that paid homage to the late Sekou Sundiata (pictured above). It was a piece that celebrated the drummer Clyde Stubblefield (James Brown’s famous “Funky Drummer”).
Sekou was the reason I decided to get into performance poetry. I heard him on a spoken word CD the likes of which i can no longer find!! It featured a who’s who of some of my favorite New York (NuYorican) Poets; Sekou, Willie Perdomo, Tish Benson, Bob Holman,…) Thats why when Will asked if anyone in the audience knew who Sekou Sundiata was i may have been the only one that answered…i dam sure was the LOUDEST!
Sekou performed this signature piece, SPACE: A Monologue . on that CD and it changed my whole perception of Poetry Forever!!! The version on the cd was a live recording complete with crazy crowd participation. It was the type of connection i’ve always strived for…And i’ll be Damned if Will didn’t pull that shit off with his piece!!!!
3 responses so far ↓
1 Bob Holman // Oct 11, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Imani, so great to hear Sekou’s name in the air! You’ve inspired me to hurry up and finish my memoir about poet of blue dreams….
2 imani // Oct 13, 2007 at 9:37 am
I can’t wait to see what you put together Bob…being that you were the poet to “introduce” me to Sekou and so many other pioneer poets…
3 Flippin the Script: Rap Meets Poetry; The Quentisential Poetry Cd // Oct 14, 2007 at 2:40 pm
[…] Last week I reminisced about Sekou Sundiata (1946-2007). His signature piece, Space, I heard for the first time on a CD called Flippin the Script: Rap Meets Poetry. Produced by the legendary Bob Holman, this CD is a virtual open-mic recorded over 2 years at the Nuyorican Poetry Cafe. It was released on Mouth Almighty/Mercury; the first ever spoken word/poetry record label. […]
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