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Friday, April 18, 2003

By Sarah Lolley

Poetry and rhyme; spoken word and rhythm; hip-hop and jazz; open mike night takes them all and redefines.

Justin Strong, owner of the Shadow Lounge, which holds a Hip-Hop Cafe Series on Friday nights. (John Heller, Post-Gazette) Hip-Hop Cafe Series WHERE: Shadow Lounge, 5972 Baum Blvd., East Liberty. WHEN: 10 p.m. Fridays. ADMISSION: $5; 412-363-8277. Bridgespotters WHAT: The Midnight Espresso Series [M.E.S.] WHERE: Penn Theatre, 4809 Penn Ave., Garfield. WHEN: 9:09 tonight. ADMISSION: $10; $8 students; BYO wine, $3 cork fee; www.bridgespotters.com Open Mike At Crawford Grill WHERE: 2141 Wylie Ave., Hill District. WHEN: 9-11:30 p.m. Wednesdays beginning April 23. TICKETS: 412-471-1565

Synonymous with lit class, but at the foundation of hip-hop, spoken word has become more popular with the support of artist collectives and local leadership. Open mike nights at the Shadow Lounge, the Crawford Grill and the Bridgespotters' Midnight Espresso Series have inspired prose from students in college and high school along with people schooled by the streets. This vibrant community of spoken-word artists has started to share stages with hip urban emcees to exchange styles or compete in slams in a hometown fashion.

Its newfound popularity stems from Russell Simmons' Def Jam, Eminem in "8 Mile" and the iconoclastic film "Slam," but the roots go back to pioneers like Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets. Although there is still a divide between kids trying to imitate what they hear on WAMO and those that have taken the music back to its simplest form, something enriching is growing in the communities that once made Pittsburgh jazz famous.

WORD

As part of this movement of words, tonight the Bridgespotters open their monthly series at the Penn Theatre with "Roll Call," a focus on police brutality accompanied by an open mike segment.

Kamau Ware, the collective's founder, plans to bring the Midnight Espresso Series to the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and traditional places like the Coliseum in Homewood. The M.E.S. open mike began in 2000 as a weekly Friday night event with hip-hop discussions and poetry readings. To give more time for artist development, Ware says the collective has devised monthly themed events.

"We're not a club, we're an artist collective," he explains. "We shouldn't be spending 80 percent of our time entertaining people ... We're improving by giving people a rich, full artistic experience."

The transformation has come a long way from the house party venues that inspired Ware to form the organization. What began with aspiring emcees wanting to "spit" their work for friends has evolved into a community with an open invitation to all.

"People who craft themselves as emcees take the time to write and craft their work," Ware says. He says the spoken-word scene, a hipper term than poetry, challenges people to be writers again.

And it's true, more emcees within the hip-hop community are spending time reading and expanding their vocabulary, inspired by the lyrical success of Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg, both of whom performed in poetry slams. However, some still believe that spoken word derives from having a degree from a university and not from the streets.

Davu, 26, was one of the first featured poets to perform at M.E.S. He was a poetry and theater major at Pitt and has been touring the open mike circuit for four years. "I don't know the difference between a rhyme and poem," he says. "The spoken word scenes are ill. The only problem, people don't want to be a poet, they want to be an emcee."

Open mike nights are the result of hip-hop's disenfranchised audience who cannot relate to the flashy lifestyles and party tunes pumped out over the radio. "Spoken word is new again," Davu says. "It's like The Roots song 'Seed' -- 'She wants neo-soul because hip-hop is old.' "

TO THE BEAT

According to B-Tree, who performed his rhythmic diatribes to a drum beat at a recent Flux event, the key is the same in hip-hop and spoken word: rhythm, rhyme, energy, truth and politics. B-Tree made the crossover from his work at Kuntu Repertory Theater and has integrated theatrical characters into his performances.

B-Tree, Davu and the Bridgespotters all have upcoming albums with jazz or hip-hop instrumentals. Marketing recorded performances is difficult because the soul of the genre is embedded in the live performances. This is one reason Def Jam has been successful, because it is an experience, but at the same time a product.

"Groups like the Bridgespotters are necessary in the spoken word movement," says B-Tree. "Collectives that work on artist development bridge gaps between corporate and art. It's the new model on how to market spoken word."

Another key is the availability of performance spaces like the Crawford and Shadow Lounge.

"The whole point of the Shadow Lounge was to create a forum for artists within a social experience," says owner Justin Strong. The Lounge has given people a permanent venue for open mike nights for the past three years. The Friday Night Hip-Hop Cafe Series is now the host to traveling artists and emcees from all over the world. Recently it was the venue for the Grand Slam, the qualifying rounds for the team that will travel to Chicago for nationals. The team is made up of four poets who have won open mike slams and will travel the region before the summer competition.

Inspired by the M.E.S. but deeply rooted in '80s hip-hop, Fletcher Jones hosts Wednesday Nights at the Crawford Grill. He is down with Mel-Man, Dr. Dre's prodigy producer from Pittsburgh, and academic cats like Davu, but he is not a poet or an emcee. The military gave him his education and, besides owning a salon with his wife, he is a city firefighter.

At his night at the Grill, patrons get a down-home atmosphere with Pitt students mingling with the neighborhood.

"We have dudes who come through rap," Jones says. "They do the poetry thing -- like they will get up and do one of their songs in a style more conducive to poetry." According to Jones, the difference is in the audience. "They are more punctual, drink a little less ... Some of us are getting into our 30s and there's a part [of hip-hop] we want to enjoy."

Jones says he has a new appreciation for musicians like John Coltrane and Miles Davis. "Jazz heads" in their 60s and 70s come out and teach the younger generation, like father to son.

"Some poetry is happy, but a lot is painful," Jones says. "Those forms of music like jazz can connect [spoken word] -- a lot of jazz is painful."

In one instance a young man who went by the name Bad News performed on a Wednesday and was killed on a Thursday. In an act of mourning, his father performed poems he had written about getting his life together and not being able to share it with his son.

For an older generation like Jones, who still lives in the same depressed neighborhood, leaving the hood is more a state of mind than an address change. Like hip-hop, it is empowering a community that is scarred and wounded.

"We've all seen the bad side of life," Jones says. "I get so tired of some of the hip-hop. I am from the ghetto and I don't need anyone to tell me how bad it is. Tell me how I might be able to get out, mentally."

Sarah Lolley is a freelance writer.