this is one of those nights where i’m tired as fuck but can’t get myself to sleep.
I’M SOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!
last night was ill-literacy & the hi-lifes’ first jam session since february.
prepping for our santa clara show next friday.
those of you who are coming out to that are in for some surprises…i can’t really reveal what, because quite honestly it’s still unclear to me…all i can say is…all those frustrations of not being able to write a 3-minute formulaic slam-style spoken word piece flies out the window when them hi-lifes boys start playing, and nico’s sitting on the couch nodding his head and ruby’s dancing and dahlak’s smashing the keys and that microphone’s hot in my hands.
there’s a change in the weather here at ill-literacy.
part of me wonders what it all means,
the rest of me is a multitude of questions, doubts, excitements.
the santa clara show won’t be straying too far from the few sessions we’ve had with the band, but it’s opening up the floodgates for the fall tour…that shit’s gonna be WILD. whether or not you’ve seen an ill-lit show in any form, we’re completely flipping it. or as i like to think, keeping a lot of the characteristics that people like, but adding some stuff that you’ll love.

the other day i was writing a new intro to potentially open up the new ill-literacy set. somewhere in between the part about space robots and the point where the guitar solo kicks in, i suddenly became extremely self-conscious. this is a loooooooooong way from the ill-literacy that was doing 15-minute features in cafes at poetry slams just a year and a half ago. part of me is worried about it. artistically, it’s what i want to do. i’m craving music, and lately every time i try to sit down to write a poem, it feels contrived, cliche, corny.

at the same time, i remember the feeling of disappointment and alienation as a young spoken word fan finding out that saul williams was switching over to music. it was 2001 and i had just gotten into it because of him and it was like watching the captain jump ship. i couldn’t understand why. there were enough musicians out there…spoken word was so fertile yet untapped to me, there was so many places it could go and saul, the guy at the frontline, was putting out rock albums. it took me years and even a face-to-face conversation with him, but now i understand exactly why he made the change. he never left spoken word, he just had to take it where it hasn’t been yet. and since i’d never heard it like that before, i didn’t recognize it as such.

still, there’s something about being in the audience and watching someone on stage with just a microphone…no band, or support vocalists, or backup track–just the intensity of voice and the warped facial expressions and mist darting from clenched teeth. i really do believe in spoken word as an artform and as a movement, and so i feel that as ill-lit we’ll always try to keep some aspect of that a’cappella element in there. but it’ll just be surrounded by hella funky ass music that makes you want to fly to outer space.

speaking of which, i just finished reading this biography of george clinton that the homie jamilah gave me for my birthday. i pretty much finished the whole thing in two sittings. in reading all these biographies, i’ve learned that everyone has to go through a wannabe period. it’s just the way things are. so frankly, hendrix was a wannabe dylan, and sly was a wannabe hendrix, and clinton was a wannabe sly, and outkast was a wannabe clinton, and lately ill-lit has been wannabe all that. HOW STARRY-EYED DO I GET IMAGINING MYSELF IN THAT CHAIN REACTION?? not to say that we’re about to come out on stage all p-funk, but it’s safe to assume that we’ve been drawing more inspiration from that than, say, the minneapolis slam team.

(disclaimer: that was not a diss to the minneapolis slam team)

anyway, with that said, i know a lot of you folks who read my blog learned about me through “slip of the tongue.” at the risk of you gasping at your computer screen, i must reveal to you that it is my deep deep hope that i can retire that poem by the fall tour. well, maybe not retire, but do WAY LESS or strictly on a “only perform when panties are thrown on stage for it” basis (though i guess given the content of the poem that would be kind of counterproductive). well, here’s the deal: i’ll only replace it if i come up with something that i think is better. and 300 years down the road when we do our dreamgirls-style goodbye performance, i’m sure it’ll be in the set list.

well, much of my style-transition anxiety was eased upon leaving the erykah badu show on sunday and seeing how far away from the neo-soul image she has gone…and how much better she is for that, in my opinion. i mean, i love love love love love love love baduizm and mama’s gun, but i don’t need her to release another one of those. her new music is the shit because it’s very apparent that it’s the type of work that she’s having fun doing. and even though she didn’t do “next lifetime,” we still survived (plus, that electronic version of “apple tree” was the hottttttttnesssssssssss!)