Question: Why don’t you talk…or explain your work? and what do you want people to get from it? how would you advise a fellow creative mind new to tumblr.
Putting pen to paper with regards to a lot of my work is something,..that I avoid. Mainly because, describing my creative process in words is probably one of the most difficult elements of the ‘process’…, and in doing so I’d probably start to sound a bit.. ‘off’, soo that coupled with my hideous punctuation= recipe for disaster.
honestly, after 2 years with the most amazing English teacher in life (S/O to Mrs.Pickard), that is simply inexcusable.
I’m all for sensory material, so… something emotive, something you can feel.
So a lot of the time, I look at the bigger picture, how I can present it in the best light, something appealing, be it with music, the theme of my page, the vibe my previous post have in relation to others… it takes time and effort.. but eventually once you get comfortable with your aesthetic.. something I’m still trying to perfect.. eventually it will all fall into place
Does that make sense?
If I see, hear or read something, and im genuinely inspired….I get that feeling…like “damn” or “shit… that’s deep”… excuse my French…yeh In the long run, that’s what I would hope for people to get from it…
Personally, I’d so much rather let the work speak for itself, I know how cliché that sounds but, really, I believe that, individual perspective, opinion, state of mind or whatever… in essence cannot and shouldn’t be determined…or… we could just say that’s just me trying to deceive myself, as to the write up being unnecessary.
This is something i wrote about 3 years ago for an English paper. amazing how much you forget in such little time.
“In the spirit of God
In the spirit of the Ancestors
In the spirit of the Freedom Writers”
A Hip-Hop Diary…
1970- The Rotten Apple… the Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn, ‘Southside’ Jamaica Queens. I was born in New York City concrete jungle, where pain consumes each breath, where violence is the basis of morality, and poverty is the norm of society.
I made you dream.
For those in the struggle I was ‘the dream.’ Beauty in the midst of oppression I was a gift in the eternal present from the Griots of West-Africa. And for that I bless the rains down in Africa because my birth made you embrace your afrocentricity.
Who am I…? A messenger
I spoke for those who remained silent, because for them silence was the loudest kind of noise and I was a vessel from which their stories could be told. I spoke of life experience, the African American experience, the celebration of freedom from the emancipation of slavery and the message of hope for future generations. For I prayed they would one day keep on this poetic bloodline.
Who am I…? A Culture
I spoke of love, truth, and hope against hate envy and greed, because to live for yourself is to live selfishly and to live for others is to live eternally. Allah told me. So, I lived for humanity and the progress of society. For this was the way paved before me, led by oratory forefathers, Malcom X and Langston Hughes, inspired by the literary genius of W.E.B, the rich timbre of Simone, the voice of Maya and the message of King.
I appealed to the African-American conscious, encouraging questions of self identity, questioning freedom and equality, democracy and religion.
Once ago…I made you think.
I kicked back and spat bars with cats from the bronx, freestyled with UK grime MC’s, sang bridges in the slums with kwaito, rhymed in the favellas of Rio, n wine mi waist pon di dancefloor inna di carribean ghetto’s.
Cus yall was trying to escape that darkness n that nothingness in the never ending tale of the human race. n I let you use me as means to express yo pain. Now I shudder as I watch from dis’ place… of what remains of my name.
- |Peter Boetke|
