Open Mic Night at the Spoken Word Cafe in Chicago is Back!

The Beat. The Rhythm. The Groove. It can make or break a rhyme. Electronic drums will never beat a live drum. When I stepped into the Spoken Word Café, I heard a drumbeat and my heart pulsed to the sound. I love live music. I love good poetry. And I'm obsessed with hot chocolate. At the Spoken Word Café, located at 4655 South King Drive, I could get all three.

Poetry

"Poetry has a stereotypical era of a lil' soft guy," the host of the Saturday Night

Soul Espresso Café, Khari B., better known as the Disco Poet, states. "My album is called WordSound: THIS AIN'T NO PUNK ASSED POETRY!!!"

I thoroughly understand why he gave his album that title. I've been to more than enough poetry sets to realize that suddenly men get more sensitive and women get more horny when they decide to recite a poem. The sole proprietor of the Spoken Word Café and the creator of Saturday night's Open Mic night, Jimalita Tillman, performed a poem about this bad habit when the show started. A man who would never get any play on the streets from a certain female could write a love poem and suddenly, she'd find him so interesting. A woman that a guy never thought twice about could write a poem about her clit and guys start fantasizing. Sure enough, there were some guys who played right into the stereotype with poems about how great women are and one woman, with an armsling on, recited a poem praising rough sex.

But Disco Poet, along with a few others that night, including bestselling novelist Y. Blak Moore, author of Triple Take, kicked that stereotype right in the ass.

"I love poetry. At first I thought [poetry] was a bunch of people thinking they were enlightened and (in a singsong voice) everybody talked like this and all of their words moved up," jokes Oscar "Juice", the bass guitar player of Bemaji and the House of Twang.

So where does the appreciation for poetry come from? Miguel, a Wal*mart manager, says "Math is black and white. There's the wrong answer and there's the right answer. I see a brown tree and I say it's brown. With English, it's got to be a shade of something." He's not alone. Sometimes poetry does get a little singsongy, too wordy, unnecessarily deep, and many more times flat-out corny. But with Disco Poet's cuts like Nigga that Does Nothin', that stereotype is not apparent. Disco Poet snaps about "The twenty-two bullets that did not did not did not hit Diallo in New York could've hit me. But I stalled as the cops drawed and popped their forty-one shots at him. Fortunately my lil' black ass was not in the way. No. I was left to live because they knew that I wouldn't, they knew that I couldn't, they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, I wouldn't do a goddamn thing."

Hosting performances for the past five years, doing three gigs in one night, promoting a new album, and working with live bands like Wehit, House of Twang, and Sound Spectrum, I get the impression that the Disco Poet is doing every damn thing!

Disco Poet

But topics like Amadou Diallo and disco don't seem to have much in common. So why is his name Disco? He explains that the disco title is more the combination of energy of Chicago's scene mixed with poetry. He doesn't have the rhythmic head nod of a hip-hop dancer, the smooth strut, or the don't-fuck-with-me pose that hardknocks are so famous for expressing when they're sitting in their seats. Disco music is a free spirit that grabs your attention with the energy of that Energizer bunny. The Disco Poet does the same, just without the disco music. I met him at the Chromium (817 W. Lake) during a spoken word Competition. Originally I went to hear some poetry and get the complimentary Martell Cosmopolitan, but when I heard him screaming from the front of the stage, I was entertained. The poets were cool, but I was more interested in hearing Disco Poet, the host of the show as he jumped on and offstage, danced, screamed, performed poetry, and called the audience's half-claps out by saying "Y'all on some byool-shit tonight".

Chicago? On some bullshit? No! You don't say! "Chicago has this mellow air about it. It's just like 'Hey man, we're cool'. Chicago easily has some of the greatest artists. [But] Chicago is the least supportive city I have ever been to and I've been all over the country. I've been to little towns and they give so much love. Then I come back here and folks is like (shrugs) 'And?' I've been supported but if I was a New York artist in New York, I'd probably be ten times more known than I am now."
Judging from the Chromium's audience reaction to some very good poets, especially the girl with the piece on Reparations, I'd have to agree with the Disco Poet.

Hip-Hop vs. Poetry

I saw several people in the Chromium, sitting back, drinking their drinks, and staring aimlessly across the room in their best I'm-too-cool-to-clap pose while they waited on another person to clap, cheer, and hoot for the performers. I was taken aback at the difference in audience behavior at the Spoken Word Café. When hip-hop lyricists, poets, singers, and instrumentalists performed, they all received appreciative cheers. I guess they figured out the secret of performers. People on stage want to know how every single person in the room feels. They want every single one of them to participate (and be tactful enough to turn off their cell phone). Treat each performer like he/she is family, even if it is distant family.

"Poetry is the parent of hip-hop because before a beat was put to it, the words are put on paper," Jimalita explains.
"It's us that's underrating [poetry]," Disco Poet says. "Black people are so talented and gifted and so many things come to us naturally. But we take it for granted. Then corporate America grabs it and runs away with it. We have examples of that all through history and we ain't got [the control] yet. If we let poetry go just like we let go of R&B and Rock n' Roll and blues and jazz and hip-hop..."

Hold up! Did he say we let go of hip-hop? I know Eminem is tight, but "let go" is a little strong, isn't it?

"Hell yeah we let go of hip-hop. I love old school heads like Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Common, Mos Def and Talib Kweli but I can't get into present-day hip-hop."

Point taken. In poetry, we can still say what we want to say without being ordered to say what's popular.

"Ho bitch guarantees a hit," Bemaji, Jimalita's brother and the founder of Bemaji and the House of Twang, sings.

"Corporate America has co-opted hip-hop so much at this point. It will be virtually impossible to turn around without black people across the whole country turning it around. If we gone take hip-hop back, we gone change everything that goes into hip-hop, from clothes to marketing to promotions to manufacturing. We have to take it back. When that happens, I'ma grow wings, fly to the Sears Tower and dance a jig," says the Disco Poet. "It's not corporate America's fault. We allow that. I'd like to see it happen but it's a hard thing to picture. It could happen tomorrow where people just get fed up enough saying we tired of you hurting our creation."

Music

"I wanted to play music, so whatever I could get my hands on, I made it happen," says Bemaji. "Music is my form of expression."

Playing the bass guitar, drums, and the keyboard along with other instruments, and playing background at several open mics made him a natural for this show. "When I was in New York producing this girl and I played the guitar for her, she joked about my style and said I sounded kinda twangy. My studio is at my house so I called the band Bimaji and the House of Twang."

I like the Dre, Swizz Beatz, and Timbaland sounds, but nothing beats a live band. Even when Bimaji admitted that due to personality clashes, he's had times when he wished he was solo, I didn't take him seriously. It was like the time when you get mad at your sibling, and tell them you wish you were an only child. But when you see the band together, they're like brothers. Jokes are thrown out every five seconds, a bunch of memories resurface (like the Jill Scott concert when Bimaji claims Kevin mugged him, he had no money, and that's how he got in the group), and it seems more like hanging out and less like an interview. With cuts like "?s" when Bimaji throws out questions like "What size shoe you wear? Do your feet smell?" and tries to convince the female he's trying to holla at to give him a ride home, it makes me laugh. The humor is apparent as well as the love for love. The album, "And then there was twang..." is a mix of funk, soul, and comedy all at the same time.

"I can appreciate any form of expression," says Kevin Smith, the drummer of Bemaji and the House of Twang. Even if you're like Kevin, not really into poetry, go to the café to hear the music.

"I've been playing the drums for about thirteen years but I don't have the mentality of your average musician. I have my own store (Car Candy at 58th & Western). My ultimate goal is to have my own restaurant and live concert venue similar to Isaac Hayes but being in a band is cool with me."

Lil' Kim, Petey Pablo, Trick Daddy, and the creator of the movie Drumline figured out a long time ago that being in a band is cool with quite a few people.

Spoken Word Café

"[Black people] were picking the beans and growing the beans but we weren't reselling them here in America. [Being on Channel 19] gave us the opportunity to be heard," Jimalita stated. "I had no money and no investors but I saved my money."
"[The open mics at the Spoken Word Café] started with the idea between my sister's coffee shop and my brother's music. The environment fit," a manager and Jimalita's sister, Gimel, explained. "It's not just poetry. It's expressing your whole soul whether you sing, [play] music, or anything you want to do to express your inner soul."

"Spoken word has nothing to do with poetry," Jimalita goes on. "The definition in terms of the venue has to do with the power of spoken word, being careful of the words that you choose and the life that you lead and the things that you say because when you speak something into existence, most likely it's gonna come true so you have to speak positive words for positive things."

For more information on:
Disco Poet: check http://www.discopoetry.com, e-mail him at discopoet@blackwebportal.com or call (773) 429-6133 for his latest album WordSound: THIS AIN'T NO PUNK ASSED POETRY!!! with music supplied by the House of Twang

House of Twang: contact Bemaji at (773) 268-2891 for their latest album "And then there was twang..." featuring poetry from Disco Poet

Soul Espresso Open Mic Night: Open mics are every Saturday and will be shown on Fridays at 11:30 p.m. showcased on TV-19. Call (773) 373-CAFÉ for more information. All poets, singers, and musicians should feel free to attend.