WEBVTT 00:00:01.170 --> 00:00:05.857 "My Air Jordans cost a hundred with tax. 00:00:05.857 --> 00:00:10.405 My suede Starters jacket says Raiders on the back. 00:00:10.405 --> 00:00:13.395 I'm stylin', smilin', lookin' real mean, 00:00:13.395 --> 00:00:17.309 because it ain't about being heard, just being seen. 00:00:17.309 --> 00:00:19.446 My leather Adidas baseball cap matches 00:00:19.446 --> 00:00:23.065 my fake Gucci backpack. (Laughter) 00:00:23.065 --> 00:00:25.614 Ain't nobody who looks as good as me, 00:00:25.614 --> 00:00:27.990 but this costs money, it sure ain't free, 00:00:27.990 --> 00:00:29.843 and I gots no job, no money at all, 00:00:29.843 --> 00:00:32.215 but it's easy to steal all this from the mall. 00:00:32.215 --> 00:00:35.052 Parents say I shouldn't, but I knows I should. 00:00:35.052 --> 00:00:37.743 Got to do what I can to make sure I look good, 00:00:37.743 --> 00:00:40.734 and the reason I have to look real good, well, to tell you the truth, man, 00:00:40.734 --> 00:00:45.723 I don't know why. Guess it makes me feel special inside. 00:00:45.723 --> 00:00:48.607 When I'm wearing fresh gear I don't have to hide, 00:00:48.607 --> 00:00:50.538 and I really must get some new gear soon 00:00:50.538 --> 00:00:52.509 or my ego will pop like a 10-cent balloon. 00:00:52.509 --> 00:00:56.414 But security is tight at all the shops. Every day there are more and more cops. 00:00:56.414 --> 00:00:58.937 My crew is laughing at me because I'm wearing old gear. 00:00:58.937 --> 00:01:01.790 School's almost over. Summer is near. 00:01:01.790 --> 00:01:04.283 And I'm sportin' torn Jordans. 00:01:04.283 --> 00:01:09.583 I need something new. Only one thing left to do. 00:01:09.583 --> 00:01:13.343 Cut school Friday, catch the subway downtown, 00:01:13.343 --> 00:01:15.726 check out my victims hangin' around. 00:01:15.726 --> 00:01:17.766 Maybe I'll get lucky and find easy prey. 00:01:17.766 --> 00:01:19.952 Got to get some new gear. There's no other way. 00:01:19.952 --> 00:01:22.310 I'm ready and willing. I'm packing my gun. 00:01:22.310 --> 00:01:24.766 This is serious business. This ain't no fun. 00:01:24.766 --> 00:01:27.334 And I can't have my posse laughin' at me. 00:01:27.334 --> 00:01:31.089 I'mma cop something dope, just wait, you'll see. 00:01:31.089 --> 00:01:33.674 Come out of the station, West 4th near the park, 00:01:33.674 --> 00:01:35.911 brothers shooting hoops and someone remarks, 00:01:35.911 --> 00:01:37.373 'Hey homes, where you get them Nik's?' 00:01:37.373 --> 00:01:41.767 I says to myself, 'Yeah. I likes 'em, I likes.' 00:01:41.767 --> 00:01:44.535 They were Q-tip white, bright and blinding my eyes. 00:01:44.535 --> 00:01:47.215 The red emblem of Michael looked as if it could fly. 00:01:47.215 --> 00:01:49.649 Not one spot of dirt. The Airs were brand new. 00:01:49.649 --> 00:01:51.369 Had my pistol and knew just what to do. 00:01:51.369 --> 00:01:54.556 Waited until it was just the right time, followed him very closely behind. 00:01:54.556 --> 00:01:57.159 He made a left turn on Houston, I pulled out my gun, 00:01:57.159 --> 00:01:59.905 and I said, 'Gimme them Jordans!' 00:01:59.905 --> 00:02:02.175 And the punk tried to run. 00:02:02.175 --> 00:02:04.937 Took off fast, didn't get far. I fired,'Pow!' 00:02:04.937 --> 00:02:06.855 Fool fell between two parked cars. 00:02:06.855 --> 00:02:09.974 He was coughing, crying, blood spilled on the street. 00:02:09.974 --> 00:02:13.759 And I snatched them Air Jordans off of his feet. 00:02:13.759 --> 00:02:15.872 While laying there dying, all he could say 00:02:15.872 --> 00:02:20.935 was, "Please man, don't take my Air Jordans away." 00:02:20.935 --> 00:02:23.664 You'd think he'd be worried about staying alive. 00:02:23.664 --> 00:02:27.278 As I took off with his sneakers, there was tears in his eyes. 00:02:27.278 --> 00:02:30.176 Very next day, I bopped into school 00:02:30.176 --> 00:02:33.582 with my brand new Air Jordans, man, I was cool. 00:02:33.582 --> 00:02:36.070 I killed to get 'em, but hey, I don't care, 00:02:36.070 --> 00:02:40.239 because now I needs a new jacket to wear." NOTE Paragraph 00:02:40.239 --> 00:02:49.048 Thank you. (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:02:49.048 --> 00:02:53.979 For the last 15 years that I have been performing, 00:02:53.979 --> 00:02:58.709 all I ever wanted to do was transcend poetry to the world. 00:02:58.709 --> 00:03:01.165 See, it wasn't enough for me to write a book. 00:03:01.165 --> 00:03:03.765 It wasn't enough for me to join a slam competition, 00:03:03.765 --> 00:03:06.237 and while those things hold weight, 00:03:06.237 --> 00:03:09.925 it wasn't the driving force that pushes the pen to the pad. 00:03:09.925 --> 00:03:13.813 The hunger and thirst was, and still remains: 00:03:13.813 --> 00:03:16.741 How do I get people who hate poetry 00:03:16.741 --> 00:03:19.629 to love me? 00:03:19.629 --> 00:03:21.928 Because I'm an extension of my work, 00:03:21.928 --> 00:03:23.832 and if they love me, then they will love my work, 00:03:23.832 --> 00:03:27.099 and if they love my work, then they will love poetry, 00:03:27.099 --> 00:03:30.245 and if they love poetry, then I will have done my job, 00:03:30.245 --> 00:03:33.352 which is to transcend it to the world. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:33.352 --> 00:03:38.207 And in 1996, I found the answer in principles 00:03:38.207 --> 00:03:42.858 in a master spoken-word artist named Reg E. Gaines, 00:03:42.858 --> 00:03:47.717 who wrote the famous poem, "Please Don't Take My Air Jordans." 00:03:47.717 --> 00:03:51.762 And I followed this guy everywhere until I had him in the room, 00:03:51.762 --> 00:03:54.104 and I read him one of my pieces, 00:03:54.104 --> 00:03:56.350 and you know what he told me? 00:03:56.350 --> 00:03:58.307 "Yo' wack. 00:03:58.307 --> 00:04:01.341 You know what the problem is with you, homie? 00:04:01.341 --> 00:04:03.781 You don't read other people's poetry, 00:04:03.781 --> 00:04:06.911 and you don't got any subordination for verbal measures 00:04:06.911 --> 00:04:12.636 to tonal consideration." (Laughter) 00:04:12.636 --> 00:04:15.833 Now he kept on rambling 00:04:15.833 --> 00:04:20.638 about poetry and styles and Nuyorican Friday nights. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:20.638 --> 00:04:23.490 Now I could have quit. I should have quit. 00:04:23.490 --> 00:04:26.970 I mean, I thought poetry was just self-expression. 00:04:26.970 --> 00:04:30.355 I didn't know you actually have to have creative control. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:30.355 --> 00:04:34.338 So instead of quitting, I followed him everywhere. 00:04:34.338 --> 00:04:37.755 When he was writing a Broadway show, I would be outside of the door. 00:04:37.755 --> 00:04:41.135 I would wake him up at, like, 6:30 in the morning 00:04:41.135 --> 00:04:43.611 to ask him who's the best poet. 00:04:43.611 --> 00:04:47.851 I remember eating the eyes of a fish right out of the sea 00:04:47.851 --> 00:04:50.379 because he told me it was brain food. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:50.379 --> 00:04:53.235 Then one day I told him, 00:04:53.235 --> 00:05:00.571 "Reg E., what is subordination for verbal measures to tonal consideration?" (Laughter) 00:05:00.571 --> 00:05:04.691 And he handed me a black-and-white printed out thesis 00:05:04.691 --> 00:05:07.619 on a poet named Etheridge Knight 00:05:07.619 --> 00:05:10.036 and the oral nature of poetry, 00:05:10.036 --> 00:05:11.575 and from that point, 00:05:11.575 --> 00:05:14.063 Reggie stopped becoming the best to me, 00:05:14.063 --> 00:05:17.091 because what Etheridge Knight taught me 00:05:17.091 --> 00:05:20.997 was that I could make my words sound like music, 00:05:20.997 --> 00:05:23.907 even my small ones, the monosyllables, 00:05:23.907 --> 00:05:26.007 the ifs, ands, buts, whats, 00:05:26.007 --> 00:05:30.529 the gangsta in my slang could fall right on the ear, 00:05:30.529 --> 00:05:33.699 and from then on, I started chasing Etheridge Knight. 00:05:33.699 --> 00:05:35.931 I wanted to know which poet he read, 00:05:35.931 --> 00:05:40.027 and I landed on a poem called ["Dark Prophecy: Sing of Shine"], 00:05:40.027 --> 00:05:44.667 a toast signifying that got me on the biggest stage 00:05:44.667 --> 00:05:47.251 a poet could ever be: 00:05:47.251 --> 00:05:49.843 Broadway, baby. 00:05:49.843 --> 00:05:53.187 And from that point, I learned how to pull the mic away 00:05:53.187 --> 00:05:57.023 and attack the poetry with my body. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:57.023 --> 00:05:59.731 But that wasn't the biggest lesson I ever learned. 00:05:59.731 --> 00:06:04.105 The biggest lesson I learned was many years later 00:06:04.105 --> 00:06:08.923 when I went to Beverly Hills and I ran into a talent agent 00:06:08.923 --> 00:06:11.374 who looked at me up and down 00:06:11.374 --> 00:06:14.371 and said I don't look like I have any experience 00:06:14.371 --> 00:06:16.729 to be working in this business. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:16.729 --> 00:06:20.798 And I said to him, "Listen, punk fool, 00:06:20.798 --> 00:06:23.908 you're a failed actor who became an agent, 00:06:23.908 --> 00:06:25.472 and you know why you failed as an actor? 00:06:25.472 --> 00:06:28.682 Because people like me took your job. 00:06:28.682 --> 00:06:31.450 I've traveled all the way from Cleveland and Essex 00:06:31.450 --> 00:06:34.841 in East New York, took the local 6 line up to the hookers of Hunt's Point 00:06:34.841 --> 00:06:38.877 who were in my way on my way to master the art of space, 00:06:38.877 --> 00:06:41.192 and the one-to-infinite amount of man, woman and child 00:06:41.192 --> 00:06:43.370 you can fit in there only so I can push them 00:06:43.370 --> 00:06:46.161 to the back of the wall with my experience. 00:06:46.161 --> 00:06:48.240 People have bought tickets to my experience 00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:50.945 and used them as refrigerator magnets to let them know 00:06:50.945 --> 00:06:53.125 that the revolution is near, so stock up. 00:06:53.125 --> 00:06:55.505 I'm so experienced that when you went 00:06:55.505 --> 00:06:58.148 to a privileged school to learn a Shakespearean sonnet, 00:06:58.148 --> 00:07:00.713 I was getting those beats kicked and shoved into me. 00:07:00.713 --> 00:07:03.513 I can master shock of "The Crying Game" with the awe 00:07:03.513 --> 00:07:07.449 of a child being called an AIDS victim by a bully who didn't know 00:07:07.449 --> 00:07:10.442 that it was his father who gave it to my mother, 00:07:10.442 --> 00:07:12.294 and that's a double entendre. 00:07:12.294 --> 00:07:15.537 I'm so experienced that when you went to the Fell School 00:07:15.537 --> 00:07:17.908 and all the rich little fairy boys decided to sponsor a child 00:07:17.908 --> 00:07:20.232 in it, that was me, but kicked me out when I was caught 00:07:20.232 --> 00:07:23.908 teaching the fairy boys how to rob the PATS off a pair of Lee Jeans 00:07:23.908 --> 00:07:27.252 and bring them to VIM. Let me see Chekhov pull that off. 00:07:27.252 --> 00:07:30.306 Sanford Meisner was my Uncle Artie yelling silently to himself, 00:07:30.306 --> 00:07:32.604 "Something's always wrong when nothing's always right." 00:07:32.604 --> 00:07:35.268 Method acting is nothing but a mixture 00:07:35.268 --> 00:07:38.204 of multiple personalities, believing your own lies are reality, 00:07:38.204 --> 00:07:41.292 like in high school cool Kenny telling me he wanted to be a cop. 00:07:41.292 --> 00:07:43.388 Dude, you go to Riker's Island Academy. 00:07:43.388 --> 00:07:44.855 I could make David Mamet 00:07:44.855 --> 00:07:47.296 psychoanalyze my attack on dialogue, 00:07:47.296 --> 00:07:50.895 Stanislavski be as if he were Bruce Lee 00:07:50.895 --> 00:07:54.202 kicking your roster of talentless students up and down Crenshaw. 00:07:54.202 --> 00:07:57.191 So what, your actors studied guerrilla theater at the London Rep? 00:07:57.191 --> 00:07:59.935 Let me tell you an ancient Chinese Saturday afternoon 00:07:59.935 --> 00:08:02.399 kung fu secret. 00:08:02.399 --> 00:08:04.236 Boards don't hit back. 00:08:04.236 --> 00:08:06.474 You think black entertainers have it hard finding work 00:08:06.474 --> 00:08:08.837 in this business? I'm a suspicious mulatto, 00:08:08.837 --> 00:08:11.903 which means I'm too black to be white and too white to be doing it right. 00:08:11.903 --> 00:08:14.799 Forget the American ghetto. I've cracked stages in Soweto, 00:08:14.799 --> 00:08:18.943 buried abortion babies in potter's field and still managed to keep a smile on my face, 00:08:18.943 --> 00:08:21.358 so whatever you curse at me to your caddyshack 00:08:21.358 --> 00:08:24.023 go-for-this, go-for-that assistant when I walk out that door, 00:08:24.023 --> 00:08:27.727 whatever slander you send my way, 00:08:27.727 --> 00:08:29.847 your mother. 00:08:29.847 --> 00:08:34.047 Thank you. (Applause)