(birds twittering) (light blues guitar music) - Blues man tell you about what he gonna play?

That usually don't happen with a blues man.

They don't carry a performance list around.

Blues man don't carry no song list around.

He just plays the way he feel.

(blues guitar music continues) It's on a Saturday morning.

Got some peoples in from North Carolina.

♪ Woke up this morning ♪ ♪ Feelin' bad ♪ ♪ Thinkin' about, you know ♪ ♪ That little girl I had ♪ ♪ You know she moved across the river ♪ ♪ And she said she wasn't coming back ♪ ♪ Well, you know, my little girl moved across the river ♪ ♪ And she said she wasn't coming back ♪ My blues didn't come out no book.

My blues come from Rossi Johnson.

People like my grandfather, my grandmother, my father, and a lot of 'em... 'Cause they come up in all this and they handed it on down to me.

♪ Yeah, I'm gonna move across the river ♪ ♪ So my ol' van don't quit ♪ ♪ Mississippi Bridge don't fall down ♪ ♪ I'm movin' 'cross the river, man!

♪ Then you said... (harmonica and guitar blues music) (John playing harmonica) - This ol' harp ain't too good, now.

♪ My baby lef' me this mornin' ♪ ♪ She didn't even tell me bye ♪ I was a gospel man.

Wanna tell you like it was.

But when she left me, it hurt, and it just tore me down.

And I've been out there with these blues and things ever since.

I sing the Blues to kinda get it off my mind a little.

Try to.

♪ You know, I feel like going down to the river, people ♪ ♪ Feel like jumpin' overboard an' drown ♪ ("Cadillac" playing harmonica) Well, I born in 1927.

Yeah... That's been a long time.

(laughing) I started off as a water boy.

They said, "Water boy, water boy, bring your water 'round.

Don't like your job?

Set your bucket down."

All that old stuff.

Some of 'em hollering and sangin' the blues out there.

I said, Lord, have mercy.

Sometime it gets hot.

You got to work good then.

♪ Oh, in them long, hot summer days ♪ ♪ Buddy, that'll be June, July and Au... ♪ - You listen to the sound of Black singing in any particular historical moment, right, you get a greater sense of what's happening in terms of Black life.

And a lot of that, obviously, is rooted in language, right?

In the use of words, in the use of sound.

♪ You've got a good cotton crop ♪ ♪ But it's just like shooting dice ♪ ♪ Now you gon' work the whole year 'round, buddy ♪ ♪ Yet the cotton will be no price ♪ ♪ Further on down the road ♪ ♪ Somebody gonna hurt you like you like they hurt me ♪ ♪ Further on down the road ♪ ♪ Somebody gonna hurt you like they hurt me ♪ ♪ Then you gonna be sorry ♪ ♪ That you treat me the way you do ♪ - Not only what they're actually singing, but the tone of how they're singing it.

Where the cadences are.

You know, Black music just develops as this kind of musical communication system for enslaved Black folks as much about the playing or the beating of the drums, or the pounding of the hands as it is the use of the voice.

♪ Whoa, Lord, sinner gone to hell, now ♪ (woman playing washboard) ♪ Move, Daniel, move ♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Move, Daniel, move ♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Move, Daniel, move!

♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Move, Daniel, move ♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Shout, Daniel, shout!

♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Shout, Daniel, shout ♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Rock, Daniel, rock!

♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Rock, Daniel, rock ♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Do the eagle wing!

♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Do the eagle wing ♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ On the other side!

♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ On the other side ♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Oh, Lord ♪ ♪ Pray, sinner, come ♪ ♪ Oh, Lord, sinner gone to hell, now ♪ ♪ Move, Daniel, move ♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Move, Daniel, move ♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Move, Daniel, move!

♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Move, Daniel, move ♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Shout, Daniel, shout!

♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Shout, Daniel, shout ♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Rock, Daniel, rock!

♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ ♪ Rock, Daniel, rock ♪ ♪ Daniel ♪ - I think some of the things that came outta Africa, ways of expressin', they served a certain purpose in terms of keeping the community intact.

These art forms, these expressive forms.

Like, when we found ourselves in this oppressive situation, as I said, with like, these singers, we were just tryin' to survive from one week to the next.

And so the role that art and language played in spirituality, like, they were all part of this, you know, one formula that was trying to keep people alive.

- Music was that coded way or that methodology that they used to get the message across for hundreds of miles.

They would sing one song and that one song would transmit.

But everybody knew, everybody in the enslaved community knew that that one song meant that we're gonna meet down in the bush arbor.

♪ God is gonna trouble the water ♪ ♪ And I'm on my way to the promised land ♪ ♪ God is gonna trouble the water ♪ ♪ You can talk about me just as much as you please ♪ ♪ God is gonna trouble the water ♪ ♪ And the more you talk, I'm gonna bend my knee ♪ ♪ God is gonna trouble the water ♪ ♪ Wade in the water ♪ ♪ Wade in the water ♪ - When Lincoln freed the slaves, we 'posed to been free, but you wasn't and that was hard.

(chuckles) They had the blues.

Wow!

In here.

♪ Well, you gonna find my suitcase ♪ ♪ Oh Lord, layin' up on your shelf ♪ (blues guitar music) - The irony about the Blues is you are singing out of a pain that is lodged right down there in your very soul.

It is a pain that can incapacitate you, demobilize you if you don't manage to rise above it.

Somehow the pain has managed to merge or transform itself into joy.

(upbeat guitar music) - He said that.

- These songs that emerge out of work songs and field songs, right, that create a space of transcendence in their sound.

That the whole adage, you know, in African American life tryin' to make a way outta no way, the music, right, vocal singing was a signal point into that.

♪ I want to be ready ♪ ♪ I want to be ready children ♪ ♪ I want to be ready, whoo, hm ♪ ♪ To walk in Jerusalem ♪ ♪ Just like John ♪ I learned these songs from my grandmother who lived in Smithfield, North Carolina.

At the time, when you would go into town, there was a sign that said, "Welcome to KKK Country."

Some of the burdens that she experienced when we would go into certain stores, some of the things that she had to face with me by her side as her granddaughter would stimulate these songs that kind of would almost shield her.

That was her way of, in so many ways, fighting back against some of the things that were just put- pressing against her.

During the freedom rides and during the marches, they took that same song, which is a spiritual, and they changed it lyrically.

I would call myself a Performing Historian.

I take the music of the narrative of the enslaved and then that music really is driven all the way up through the Civil Rights Movement.

And then in some places now, in terms of justice issues or those kinds of things, the music is still applied.

♪ Cause I'm looking for freedom ♪ ♪ Just like John, come on ♪ When I say that I'm a Performing Historian, I do not just stand in front of the audience.

It's a call and response.

♪ Well, I believe, I believe ♪ ♪ I truly believe ♪ ♪ I'm walkin' for freedom just like John ♪ ♪ Whoa, I wanna be ready ♪ I need for mixed audiences to have these conversations.

We can't resolve the problems of the world in one setting, but what we can do is open up to each other and began to talk about some of the real issues that are affecting us as a community.

- And the Langston Hughes poem, on "What happens to dream deferred?

"Does it shrivel up like a raisin in the sun or does it explode?"

- There's such a stigma around, you know, just being Black, period.

That's why I love Black Lives Matter so much, because that's a powerful statement to me.

It shouldn't be, but it is.

I mean, it shouldn't be, but it is.

that Black lives matter.

Black language matters.

Like...

I just think it's important for people to just accept people, accept people's language.

I mean, what's wrong?

You know?

And that's what I'm, I think, trying to express in my music, in my performances, that, you know, people are people and I think we have a lot in common across differences.

You know, they're different.

But I think humanity, human experience, people can... You can reach people with performance in a way that you can't reach them with an academic article.

Daddy was born in 1907 in Newport News, Virginia.

The best a Black man of his background could hope for was to be a bellhop or to work the shipyards.

But that was too small for Daddy.

He believed his American dream was in his trumpet and it took him around the world.

And he played with some of the baddest around back then too.

It shows like who I am, where I came from, like my background.

And also, I'm honoring things that I didn't know that I should honor when I was coming up, you know?

You were made to feel like you were ignorant or less than you know, if you spoke Black.

But grandma's word was bond.

[In a Jamaican Accent]} "You 'na give way picknay!

You give way puss and dog!"

And that began mama's life of hard work.

Daddy brought Mama to Cleveland in 1955 and she carried with her all of her American dreams and planted them into me in what Jamaicans call [In a Jamaican Accent] "de Shame Tree."

or ya spirit of self wort.

When Jamaicans say, "Ya shame tree dead," that mean your spirit of self-wort is gone."

Until I found myself, my tree got torn down over and over.

I'm using this language that I'm using on purpose.

It's about African-American resistance, it's about African-American identity, African-American history and culture.

It's an ongoing experience.

I was learning how to love myself and be a mother to my children.

I learned that my shame tree, it wasn't dead.

I learned what love is all about.

♪ Now I know what love's about ♪ ♪ Now I know- ♪ - One of the things I think that's important about African-American vocal performance is that when you think about different vocal traditions throughout different eras, the role of a Bessie Smith in the 1920s and what her voice cultivated, particularly as Black folks were moving from the deep south and migrating to the north.

♪ Or else he wouldn't'a gone so far from me ♪ - When you think about the scat singing, you know, for instance of Ella Fitzgerald in the 1950s, that really talks about this kind of flexibility and malleability of Black life that was emerging in the post-World-War-II period.

(frantic jazz music) (Ella scatting) The role that Mahalia Jackson, for instance, played in the Civil Rights movement, literally being Martin Luther King's on-demand vocalist.

♪ I been 'buked ♪ ♪ And I been scorned ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ - Or the sound of a James Brown or Otis Redding, that grounded Black life in the specific realities of that moment.

♪ Now I know she's waiting ♪ ♪ Just anticipating ♪ ♪ For things that she'll never, never, never, ♪ ♪ Never, never, never possess, no, no ♪ ♪ But while she's there waiting ♪ ♪ Try just a little bit of tenderness ♪ ♪ That's all you got to do ♪ - Clearly there are lyrics that we remember that are great, right?

Aretha singing Otis Redding's "Respect" and taking the time to spell out the words.

♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T ♪ ♪ Find out what it means to me ♪ ♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T ♪ ♪ Take care to TCB, Oh ♪ ♪ Sock it to me, sock it to me ♪ - So that you know exactly what she's demanding in that moment.

But it's also about what the performers do with the word, right?

Pacing, right?

Phrasing, right?

That the way that a word is pronounced, that it doesn't necessarily sound the way that the word is supposed to sound, right?

That the sounds evoke something other and something else than what the meaning is, right?

So that when Aretha Franklin is in fact singing "Respect," which is about a man who did her wrong, it resonates for Black folks who are demanding that same kind of respect from America in that moment.

♪ TCB, oh ♪ ♪ Sock it to me ♪ ♪ Sock it to me ♪ ♪ A little respect ♪ ♪ Sock it to me, sock it to me ♪ ♪ Oh, yeah, a little respect ♪ ♪ Just a little bit ♪ ♪ I get tired ♪ ♪ Just a little bit ♪ ♪ But I keep on tryin ♪ ♪ Just a little bit ♪ ♪ You're runnin' out of fools ♪ ♪ Just a little bit ♪ ♪ And I ain't lyin' ♪ ♪ Just a little bit ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, respect ♪ ♪ When you come home ♪ - We dunno why you are responding sort of viscerally to this way that somebody's voice tremors or something like that, like somebody like Aretha, but what Aretha was doing was doing the medicine of healin', you know, being healed from racism, being healed from the idea that, you know, I might not make it home or my son or my daughter might not make it home.

Like, we were doing that kind of work.

And because it was good enough to keep us going, to keep us alive from one generation to another generation, I think other cultures found it effective medicine.

♪ I was born by the river ♪ ♪ In a little tent ♪ ♪ And oh, just like the river, I been runnin' ev'ry since ♪ ♪ It's been a long, long time comin' ♪ ♪ But I know ♪ ♪ A change gon' come ♪ When he wrote that song and when that song was performed, all the Black people knew exactly what he was talking about.

He said, ♪ I go to the movies and I go downtown ♪ Now we're trying to get this message across to the people that don't know, the people that don't have these experiences.

And so by crossing over to white stations, he's literally testifying to the fact of how African Americans are treated.

- I think if you were to ask any artist, Black artist, who has achieved mainstream success, they will at once be thankful for that accessibility, but also are still a little concerned that perhaps they're giving up too much of who we are to folks who don't necessarily appreciate or care, right?

I mean, you see that in some ways, in the disconnect between the huge popularity of Black music globally and the total disregard for Black humanity at the same time.

- I think many people in the majority culture who have not experienced that type of discrimination, hopefully will begin to appreciate why African-Americans have often tried to inoculate themselves from racist attacks by finding ways to value and embrace our culture and the various genres in which we use language.

- I think Black performance is many things.

It is a communally-informed expression that is individualized by individual artists, but its continually drawing from a communal well of experiences and practices.

- [Interpreter] Even though some of us couldn't hear the music as clearly, we were seeing how our family and friends listened and that influenced how we listened to music.

So you see that impact on us Black, deaf individuals in how we use our body language and our facial expressions.

(upbeat music) ♪ Woh yo!

♪ ♪ And I know everybody in here could feel it ♪ ♪ We goin' back to basics ♪ ♪ We goin' back, back, back, back, back ♪ ♪ We goin' back, back, back ♪ - I feel like the Black deaf performers are choosing to take up space.

They're using spoken word, they're using music, they're using comedy, they're using all of these forms of artistic expression to really take on their language and put it out there in a way that, "Yeah, this is a part of who I am and this is what it means to me and I'm just gonna put it out there and you can take it or leave it."

(upbeat music) ♪ Day after day ♪ ♪ There's no escape ♪ ♪ I want you inside of my arms ♪ - I think the biggest thing about Black performance traditions, for many Black artists, it is literally an extension of themself in the world.

It's their reaction to the world around them.

I think for many white audiences, Black performances are simply entertainment.

And so the use of language is seen as entertaining, right?

Outside of the performative realm, the entertainment realm, Black language gets judged on very mainstream, white, middle-class values and when language doesn't adhere to those standards, it is criticized.

It's seen as being an outlier, problematic.

(mellow music) - You know, when enslaved Africans were brought to this country, they were already speaking a language, right?

They already had a way of knowing, a way of being.

They had music and instruments and songs and dance and ways of practicing faith and anyway... And then were told you must learn essentially American standard English but weren't given access to the written word.

That to me, I think is really important, right?

You are not allowed to have books.

You cannot write, you therefore needed the spoken word.

And so my point is, what I'm clear is the ways in which I use it is the same way my ancestors did, right?

It is for the purposes of liberation.

- This poem is an apology.

For e'ry beautiful Black word I tried to camouflage in white words.

For e'ry moment of my bein', I ain't know who I was bein' 'cause bein' Black meant that I was more than the white worlds that I be in.

And bein' as though I'm a human being with a tongue trapped in a cage it ain't ask to be in.

His theory tells me it was beat in, but this beat in my bones made sure I kept this beat in so this poem then, is an apology for the intellectual abuse that began in my youth but my bad, brotha.

Look at you.

Standing on stage just like your ancestors taught ya, flipping, folding, balancing two different languages in the air, the American standard and Black savoir faire.

It sho is impressive.

(audience cheering) It sho is distinguished.

It sho is debonair.

But to capture its essence and truth can't be done in writing.

You need an audience there, a sanctuary of people willing to watch you wrestle and reconcile with yo'self and your words to produce a publication so worthy of praise it deserves an applause and I propose that I'm the purpose of this poem.

Thank you very much.

(audience cheering) - When you think about African culture and drumming patterns, there's call and response.

It's the same thing in languages and the same thing in songs, in poetry and music.

There's a need for call and response, so as a spoken word poet, I realize that because liberation is a part of the spoken word, call and response is necessary.

- Excuse me, is your name Isaac Hayes?

'Cause your soul must be playing in the background if you think you can just walk on by.

Left, right, wars I can no longer win when my right to freedom of speech seems null and void Why put a price on truth?

If people choose they can't afford to pay attention.

So what is there left to do when everything you love and fought hard for has turned its back on you.

You pray that death is right around a corner 'cause it can come so easy.

Left.

- Come on, Bowens!

- Listen.

- Left, right.

Left, right, left.

They say to always practice your cadence because practice makes perfect, especially when there's nothing left, right?

(audience cheering) - Spoken word is inspirational.

Spoken word is motivational.

Spoken word is entertainment.

Spoken word is a man waking up in the morning wonderin' how he's gonna get through his day when he has a lot of bills to pay.

Spoken word is a young woman or male tryin' to tell their parents how they identify their self in life dealing with a certain gender.

Spoken word is healing.

Spoken word is meditation.

Spoken word is life.

- So my waves are not the dismissal of cares.

More like red flags wavin' like I've been stuck on this island for so long that I don't remember what faith feels like so I been planting these anointed mustard seeds but the sun just won't shine on this island and my salty tears has delayed my harvest, but I hear that there's a church here.

Somewhere that I can go for worship here.

Said I been standing on holy ground here, feels more like quicksand here.

- They say that in poems, poets put the artifacts of their brokenness.

So in this one, you'll find a map that details an adventure of understanding.

You'll find hidden meanings, revelations and clues.

You'll find mirrors and flame throwers, coloring books and suicide notes, cries for help and affirmations I'm gon' be okay, Dear John letters to the pain I left behind and birthday cards for the pain I'll know too soon.

There are fortunes untold, promises unkept, secrets untold and doors dead-bolted shut, but...

But there's joy, y'all.

There's joy.

It is a self-determined dedication to- - It's storytelling.

Literally to this day, there's some form of story that we're telling the group of people who we're around.

It just seems like it's history repeating itself in a new generation in time.

- Thinking about a Black oral tradition in the Black community.

For me, it starts with the times as a kid I spent in church and watching Black ministers.

And as a boy, even now as an adult, you know, particularly some of the ministers that are particularly adept at the Word, as it may, there was just something mesmerizing.

Just something magical about what seemed to be an extension of a tradition that leapt off the page and into the air.

- If Paul says, "I've got to move on.

It's late right now."

If Paul says, "What a wretched man am I. I'm a sinner trying to dress up like a saint.

Ah, I can't do this thing by myself.

I've tried every way, read every book, done everything I've tried to do, but I keep doing the same stuff over and over again.

Because something's in me, there's a condition in me.

How am I released?"

And this is what Paul says.

He says, "Thanks be to God.

Because of Jesus Christ..." Without the oral tradition, you would have no Black church.

Because it had been against the law to teach Africans how to read or write the oral tradition and the aural/oral tradition were the sum and substance of Black church.

Preaching, music, testimonies, folk tales, folk stories.

The transmission from generation to generation orally, it's a sine qua non when it comes to the Black church.

(congregation singing) ♪ Sit down!

♪ (preacher singing) ♪ When your trouble's are over ♪ ♪ Sit down ♪ ♪ Sit down and rest a little while ♪ ♪ Sit down ♪ - Pastor Jones, this dude had a voice like smoke just rollin' over some water.

You know what I mean?

Whether he was preachin' or whether he was singin', you know, it would just, like, instantly transport you into another dimension, you know?

And we had a lot of people in there who just had that kinda, you know, they had fled the South, racism of the South, and kind of moved west and just landed there at this little spot.

And, like, the whole job was just like, it was doin' spiritual work like givin' people enough oomph, you know, and so, like, I learned at a early age, like, the power of what you say and how you say it and the stories you tell and what that can do for people.

- Prophetic Black preaching is what I call blue-note gospel.

The ability to be able to take the blues of life, to stare at tragedy and not fall into despair.

And that's what's unique in Black preaching, is that there's a blues aesthetic to it where preaching out of other traditions reject the blues or act as if that the blues is not even around in your life.

There is no lament, whatever.

But we never end on lament.

There's always the assurance of grace.

And you cannot have the gospel unless you know the blues.

Because Friday, Jesus on the cross, that's nothin' but the blues.

But when you get to Sunday and resurrection, that's all shoutin' and gospel.

- But God says, "It's my Grace, not your work.

It's my Grace, not your strength.

It's my Grace, not your words.

It's my Grace."

Is there anybody in here, have you been saved by Grace?

Blessed by Grace?

Touched by Grace?

Healed by Grace?

Lifted by Grace?

Turned around by Grace?

I've got to go but I feel my help comin' on when I think about the goodness of Jesus and all God's done for me.

My soul cries out!

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes!

Yes.

I'm so glad.

- Well, the speech event in Black English and the speech event in the Black church includes bodily expressions Wwe sing with our bodies, we dance, we preach, we testify.

♪ Walkin' the highway ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Walkin' the highway ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Walkin' the highway ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Walking the highway ♪ ♪ Oh, glory, glory, glory ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, glory ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, glory ♪ - I get into it.

You're going to get that Holy Ghost dance.

It's like a party.

I'm really happy, filled with emotion.

Let go and let God.

You catch the spirit.

- Yes, yes, yes.

- At other churches- - It's different.

- They're just sittin there.

- Yes, yes, yes.

For example, with the song "Hallelujah," at the other church, a different church, This is the, okay... ♪ Hallelujah ♪ But what Black people do?

We be like... - Yes.

(woman giggling) ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah!

♪ - Yes!

Yes.

- Preach!

Black people be throwing tissues.

- Amen.

(congregation cheering and clapping) (lively gospel music) (congregation singing indistinctly) I'm watching these incredible, you know, not singers, sangas, give people enough fire to make it from one week to the next.

The song might actually only have like two minutes of lyrics, you know what I'm saying?

But if this is what was required, that song would last 25 minutes.

So like long before I became a rapper, like, I'm used to people freestyling.

♪ You loved me ♪ (singer freestyling) ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ You loved me ♪ ♪ You loved me ♪ ♪ God still loved me ♪ ♪ You loved me ♪ ♪ When I couldn't love myself ♪ ♪ I couldn't love myself ♪ ♪ You loved me ♪ ♪ When I was wrong, you loved me ♪ ♪ You loved me ♪ ♪ When I turned my back on you, you loved me ♪ - I believe that the church teaches an oral dexterity that is not taught in any other venue.

So many of your politicians really learn their communication skills in church.

- Don't tell me words don't matter.

"I have a dream."

Just words?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."

Just words?

(audience cheering) "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Just words?

- And if you go down the list of some of the most impassioned and powerful politicians, whether you're talking about a Shirley Chisholm or you're talking about an Adam Clayton Powell, you're talking about people who learn these skills within the African American religious tradition.

- From Sunday to Sunday, He kept us.

From Sunday to Sunday, He kept us.

He kept us, He kept us.

- Although not all African Americans share a history of the church or a history associated with testifying and preaching, there's something about those ideas that are still shared in the community.

So not only do we testify at church, but we testify over drinks with our friends, right?

So understanding that these are larger things than just church.

- That oral tradition that is associated with the pulpit permeates the entire culture in a way that those that work in the music industry or songwriters like Smokey Robinson who is really one of the most gifted poets in the history of the country, they use language in such artistic and well-crafted ways that the evolution toward what we now associate with Hip Hop began long ago and is reflective of this oral language legacy.

- For me, it wasn't even just in these formal settings of the recording studio or the pulpit.

You know, being around young African American boys when I was a kid and into my teenage years and the way that we would, I guess, call play The Dozens with each other.

- The Dozens is ritual insults.

They usually focus on the mother or the grandmother.

Males are not left out.

You can focus on the daddy and the granddaddy and their failings as you perceive them.

(laughing) This is a very highfalutin way to talk about something that's very earthy.

- "Yo mama's so fat."

"How fat is she?"

"Yo mama's so fat that she could get busy..." You know, so you can go off into this thing, but you'll find that same thing, especially with Oware.

So Oware is the seed and hole game that you find played throughout the continent all the way to East Africa as Mancala and Yoruba, as Ayo.

And in these different locations, you have the same rules, that you can insult the other person in order to get them to think about something else or get so mad that they miss what they should have actually played.

So it's actually a strategy and it's actually infused into the sociocultural reality.

And the more humorous it is, the better it is to put the person off their game.

- [Player] That's all wrong... - The basketball game, 21, which is like a mano a mano game, right?

It's like you against... Might be six or seven other people.

And the folks who were most mesmerizing weren't necessarily the guys who played basketball well.

The guys who were most mesmerizing were the folks who talked trash the best.

And if you had that combo of trash talk and also basketball skill, you were just the king of the court that day.

- If you can't defend yourself verbally growing up in a Black community, a traditional Black community, then everybody else picks on you.

That's just the way it is.

So you're forced to develop... You could think of them as verbal defenses.

I prefer to think of them as verbal skills.

- I always got picked on.

I didn't have, you know... And I didn't have much rebuttal.

When I got smart enough to have a rebuttal, it wasn't 'cause I had a variety of jokes.

I was playing psychological games to keep myself safe.

So, you know, I would just stay the course.

You know, if somebody was talking about me, I found one thing about them that I know they wadn't happy about and I would just ride that thing until they lef' me the hell alone, you know?

'Cause I wasn't good at just, (snapping fingers) you know?

I appreciate it, you know?

And wit' my brothas and stuff like that, it's cool.

But you know, with people you don't know, 'cause people that just get on you... You know, you grow up in a poor community, they're "Ah, look at your shoes!

Ah, look at you're..." You know.

It's like I can't do nothing about my shoes, you know?

But you also can't do nothin' about your face.

(funky music) - So you become a storyteller, you become a joke teller, you become a raconteur, all of those things, you become a signifier.

You become very adept at very skillful, performed put downs and verbal corrections.

I don't need to say that if you grow up in that kind of language environment, you come to like it and appreciate it.

(audience cheering) (audience laughing) - What's- The oldest man in Harlem walked up in the spot!

(audience murmuring) (audience applauding) He look 108.

(audience laughing) (audience applauding) Oh!

You see that?

(audience cheering) Oh!

Oh!

Don't have a heart attack.

(audience laughing and clapping) Lookin' like Redd Foxx!

Give it up for Papa Sanford!

He still got some moves!

(In a Jamaican accent) His name is Grasshoppah!

(audience laughing) Give it up for Grasshoppah.

- There's a way in which, from the outside, it seems heartless and harmful, right?

But it is where young folks were sharpening their rhetorical tools.

You know, when you look at the best African-American lawyers, even the best Black politicians and preachers, the roots of that for them were playing those games, The Dozens, when they were kids and they were learning the power of rhetoric.

- The hierarchy of an individual's ability to speak spontaneously, authoritatively, effectively in the vernacular is not only highly prized but is literally used in verbal combat among men in the inner city quite regularly.

- So we gonna get this goin'.

I'm'a flip the coin and you call it in the air.

- Tails.

- He called tails.

It land heads.

You pick who go first.

Now check this out, y'all.

Show love, y'all hear something y'all like.

If y'all hear something you don't like, just don't show no love.

Let's go.

(group chuckling) - Black coat, black boots, I'm the new Blade.

Your girl mad cuz she seen me with my new thang.

I told the girl when ya lost you gotta lose things.

I got a cold for the help.

That's Kool-aid.

It's Microphone Phelps and this dude lame and I'm higher than a human on the food chain.

You's a lie if you saw me with a new chain.

I put my money in the stuff that doesn't lose change.

I give it all to my people.

That's lose change.

I'm posted in the bed with a cute thang.

It's mostly a thing of just being able to... Like the impromptu.

Just bein' able to come and create somethin' that's entertainin' cuz that's all people watch battles for.

Like people do the battles because it's fun, it's competition, but like, if it was just, you know, me and somebody else in the room battling, you know, it wouldn't be as fulfilling as if it was a lot of people to be able to hear it.

And then you can understand what, you know, how good it's coming off.

That's when you be at work and you had that breakthrough.

Like, "Man, if I'm working here, how's my battle career gonna break through?"

That's when his boss come in like, "Macs, your break through."

(audience laughing) - Case closed, off you.

That's the naked truth.

You basic dude, you trippin'.

Lace your shoes.

Think again.

Deja vu.

Play with me, you play to lose.

Call your homies, they be the bravest fools.

I mean, take the clues.

I got the best bars and the good jokes.

You live around the good folks who water grass and cook roasts and talk over dinner and tell good quotes.

I particularly feel like there's nobody that I can't battle because I can find something and make it funny Or make it rhyme, you know what I mean?

Anything that can transition to that next phrase or that next bar or that next joke or that next riot that everybody's laughin' at.

That comes from growing up.

And that's what everybody did.

You know what I mean?

If they weren't fist fighting, they were talking about each other and it was oftentimes just friendly fun but it eventually became a skill.

I'm Microphone Phelps, when I pass your home, when you finish round one, boy, you cast a stone.

Look at the crowd, they eyes glued like they got lashes on and the draft is on.

I'm with some mean boys runnin' up deeper than Jaheim voice while you at the crib with your son watching Nickelodeon Teen Choice.

- As far as like, battle rap versus cyphers versus you know, the booth, like, I look at these things as like incubators.

They're just different places where you hone different sensibilities as an emcee.

But there's definitely the cypher.

A cypher is is a place of sharin'.

It doesn't mean that battling doesn't happen here, but a cypher is this place, it's a communal place where you can get into a group of fellow hip hoppers and be sort of a contributor and a receiver, you know, of this I think magical thing that does only happen when you have that kind of thing going on.

♪ There's nuttin' new under the sun but I'm the mutation ♪ ♪ Now they catch you, yeah, slippin' and I'm gettin' 'em♪ ♪ He ain't learnin', dog, one lesson ♪ ♪ So I'm hittin' 'em, yes ♪ ♪ Natural selection, I check 'em ♪ ♪ I chin check 'em ♪ ♪ Take his breath right out his chest wind ♪ ♪ I was spittin' in the cypher ♪ ♪ We in this for the 9-to-5-ers ♪ ♪ And the 25-to-lifers ♪ ♪ Yes, you know what I'm talkin' 'bout ♪ ♪ I catch it all ♪ ♪ Okay, I love the ball ♪ ♪ Sorta like Marvin Gaye, ♪ ♪ I could do this all day and always ♪ ♪ Hey, we been doin' this for 12 years straight ♪ ♪ Okay, and when I was watching the memories ♪ ♪ Reverend was like, yo, he held it down ♪ ♪ One Monday by his self, you see ♪ ♪ It's a family, even when he's one or two ♪ ♪ It's a, God is a place ♪ ♪ So you know how we do, ooh ♪ ♪ And tomorrow we gon' do it again with Doctabarz ♪ ♪ Man, you saw how he came off the helm ♪ ♪ It's like that, man, and this is universal ♪ ♪ Oh yeah, this the cypher ♪ ♪ Wildfire off the top, no rehearsal ♪ - You learn everything you can to be a dope emcee, and then you forget it all when you freestylin' because it's right on the spot, you know?

It's like Mr. Myagi and Daniel-san, you know?

(laughing) You learning the techniques and then you forget it all and you let it flow and it just comes natural to you.

♪ Because what I'm simply be doing is pursuing ♪ ♪ Everything in my soul ♪ ♪ And everything that is older than me ♪ ♪ 'Cause I know that my ancestors are looking at me ♪ ♪ And they rootin' for me ♪ ♪ They simply guidin' with me ♪ ♪ They simply takin' every step with me ♪ - You ain't gotta be the dopest emcee or rapper.

You can come and enjoy.

You can get somethin' from a cypher even if you're not in there spittin'.

But if you in there spittin', you see that your neural pathways is gonna pop different, your synapses are gonna pop different and you're gonna be preserving your life if you actually decide to jump in the cyph' and give it a try.

And you'll see that, hey, I might go out there and knock out that work presentation or I might step into that job interview and he ask me a question I ain't never heard before, but I gotta (snaps fingers) come up with the proper answer right there on the spot.

And then you see how that that cypher helped you out.

How that freestyle helps you out.

♪ Where it's going, where it is, how it is ♪ ♪ That I'm always really showin' y'all ♪ ♪ Really something worth your knowledgement ♪ ♪ Leadin' and they followin' ♪ ♪ This is why we dominant, never recessive ♪ ♪ You can see that we really competent ♪ ♪ We about to give them all of that, that raw ♪ ♪ This is really what they came and asked for ♪ ♪ You can see the way that we doin' it ♪ ♪ We can't really put you in no Rav 4 ♪ ♪ If I'm pushin' ♪ ♪ It's gon' be a Leaf and it will be electric ♪ ♪ My styles is always really dope ♪ ♪ Complete and so electric ♪ ♪ I'm pretty sure that they be digging how I be connectin' ♪ ♪ I am a specimen and I jam a veteran ♪ ♪ And I give it to these people ♪ ♪ 'Cause you see I really ain't never been the type ♪ ♪ Who would do his crime and then leave behind ♪ ♪ Any type of evidence ♪ ♪ I'm past, future, I'm present tense ♪ ♪ And they've heard ♪ ♪ How it is that I come ♪ ♪ And I'm always cookin' up all of them flavors ♪ ♪ They savor, and now ♪ ♪ They really wanna bring they fork and all they knife ♪ ♪ Bring they children and they wife ♪ ♪ This is what we do every night ♪ ♪ I'm up in the cypher ♪ ♪ I just got up on a plane for 36 hours ♪ ♪ And it seemed like double flights ♪ ♪ They got delayed and missed ♪ ♪ Had to call my dude on Instagram ♪ ♪ Like I just hope I get there before 10 o'clock ♪ ♪ So that I will be able to spit ♪ (audience murmuring) My research originated in just this idea that, you know, I was starting to age as a rapper, and you know, the commercialism around like industry and stuff like that, and somehow it defining your worth and even the worth of our culture.

And people asking me like, "Why are you a rapper?"

And you would never ask me, "Why am I still playing chess?"

And so really wanting to just highlight the intellectual complexity of rap, I looked at expert freestyle lyricists where freestyle means completely improvised.

♪ My dissertation had a simple motivation ♪ ♪ Survival of the livin' requires adaptation ♪ ♪ To change one's environment and situation ♪ ♪ So this should be an explicit goal of education ♪ ♪ Creative experts embody innovation ♪ ♪ So how they think and learn's ♪ ♪ A great basis for investigation ♪ ♪ Of how humans adapt and learn to adapt ♪ ♪ So I examined this in experts at rap improvisation ♪ ♪ With highly complex cognitive engagement ♪ ♪ Requirin' music and language integration ♪ And I broke it down into its sort of basic components, language, music, cognition.

Those are the things that any lyricists engaged in at any point in time, and sort of just turned that into its own, you know, lookin' at just lyricism as a scientific discipline.

♪ Papers one and two came from one experiment ♪ ♪ Comparing expert rappers to non-lyricists ♪ ♪ To find that the way that we hear rhyme ♪ ♪ And the the brain responds to rhyme ♪ ♪ Are modulated by rap experience ♪ ♪ In paper three, I pose a theory concernin' ♪ ♪ How creative writin' promotes self-directed learnin' ♪ ♪ And show how expert rap competence ♪ ♪ Demands being metacognitive with several knowledges ♪ ♪ So when the the emcees came to live out they name ♪ ♪ I had 'em sign a consent form ♪ ♪ And used electroencephalograph waves ♪ ♪ To exam they brains ♪ ♪ To me, MC means metacognition ♪ So we saw like neurological adaptation, perceptual adaptation, and then there was this other component where it's just like... Look, when I started rappin', Hip Hop was not this sort of foregone conclusion, global phenomenon or whatever.

Like, it was something that we didn't even know if it was gonna last, kind of thing.

So, there was no rap Juilliard where we could learn this stuff.

There was nobody around to teach us.

And so, you know, anybody who became a dope emcee, became a dope emcee because of independent study, because of self-directed study, because of analyzin' examples that they found worthwhile and pullin' it apart and doing their own work.

♪ Well, if he's out late at night ♪ ♪ If he's got his head on right ♪ ♪ I lay you nine to five he's walkin' with steel ♪ ♪ Brotha man said he's 'fraid of gangsters ♪ - Gil Scott-Heron, The Watts Prophets, Last Poets, they was definitely doin' their thing.

Hell, James Brown!

You know, if you watch Eddie Murphy and how he talk about James Brown, it's like, you know, "Hey!

Uh!"

Those are words that meant something.

♪ New York City, take me home ♪ ♪ Aaaaahhhh ♪ ♪ New Orleans, home of the blues ♪ ♪ Yes, mama, aaaah!

♪ ♪ One more time for the Night Train ♪ (audience cheering) - And he was one of the first emcees.

You understand what I'm saying?

So when Bambada and Cool Herc and these people got together and formulated Hip Hop, we had a lot to pull from.

You understand what I'm saying?

'Cause there was no such thing as a Hip Hop record back then.

Am I right or wrong?

We went to mom and dad's closet, stole some of they records got two turntables and invented this thing called the cross fade and put the black melanated wax on this one and we went back and forth.

I don't care if it was a beat or a grunt or a horn or a stab or a snare or whatever it was, we invented that, we came up with that and then added our cultural expression to it.

(funky music) - Ideas are just constantly regurgitated, generationally speaking.

Hip Hop in the beginning was not its own music.

So it took from Disco, it took from Jazz, it took from Funk.

It took from Soul to create a bed of music for artists to perform over through language.

- The language involved just with the music we make, it's...

The easiest way to explain it or the easiest representation, or metaphor rather, to use for it is it's fluid.

You put water in the glass, it's the glass.

You put water on the floor, it's the floor.

You put water in the cup, it's the cup.

We can take these words in this English language that's a broken language anyway, and break it again, (laughing) for lack of better terms.

And for a long time, we were criticized about our improper English.

And it's crazy because the same people that came from Europe here had spoke broken English!

Or what was considered broken English that's now in the dictionary.

- You know, Hip Hop and whatever sensibilities came out the ghetto and went into this thing that was then pushed all over the globe and people fell in love with it And yeah, people, you know, they brought their personal identities, their personal contexts to the work.

But there's still this root language that is, you know, still rooted in African vernacular, art forms, style, everything.

Like, again, we ain't just talkin' about the words.

We're not just talkin' about the rhyme.

We're talking about contour, everywhere.

You know, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, like, how they was rapping originally all the way up to people like Nas addin' the complexity or Rakim addin' the complexity.

All of that is now as much a part of their lineage as it is a part of my lineage.

You cannot, you know...

It didn't just spring up outta nowhere.

♪ Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge ♪ ♪ I'm tryin' not to lose my head ♪ ♪ It's like a jungle sometimes ♪ ♪ It makes me wonder how I keep from going under ♪ - I mean, as a guy who has been listening to it for over 35 years, you know, I can hear a brand new record and say, "Oh, they took this, this and this."

You know what I mean?

They may have taken from a rap record 20 years ago, but that rap record they took from 20 years ago actually took from a funk record 15 years prior to that.

So it evolves, but it really just keeps, you know, going over and over in a cycle, I think.

(funky music) - I don't think you can divorce Black performance from Black language.

There is a performativity that's always been present in Black language.

- Remember, Harlem got its own radio station, baby!

Yes, we do.

The one, the only, the one... Ooh, shake it, daddy.

Shake it, shake it.

Ha-ha.

- You know, we have a long line of that.

The whole idea of the griots coming from Africa and then morphin' that energy into what the preacher was doing on Sunday.

Man, that was rhythmic, man, in church.

To the point where the grandma was throwin' up the car, praisin' the Lord.

You understand what I'm saying?

And then when you just at the job and somebody just starts singin', you have to have that cultural tie, that common thread that's interweavin' us together.

And you can participate in the song regardless of whether you can sing or not.

There's just some things that, wherever you go, you're just gonna find Black people participatin' in.

- African people wherever they are, produce knowledge and transmit it predominantly through the oral mode.

A medium in which the whole body speaks not just by word of mouth.

In a true oral performance, sometimes the most profound statements are made by the eye contact, through body language, a wave of the hand.

(gentle music)