May 4, 2022 • 61 mins
Otis Mensah, is a hip-hop poet and master of vulnerable expression. Otis became the City of Sheffield’s first poet laureate and his live performances include Glastonbury Music Festival and opening for numerous artists. Otis breaks down barriers of power, elitism and control including stereotyping and branding. He reminds "people that poetry is meant to be for the people.” – The Guardian. We explore curiosity and courage through identity, power struggles, daily fears, anxieties, the beauty of dyslexia and how we can give language freedom to let ourselves flourish. We discuss why poetry can speak but we may not speak to each other.
Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can be found here: www//canartsaveus.com/
Image: Ai Narapol.
Audio edit courtesy of Joey Quan.
Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb
Discover Otis Mensah: www.otismensah.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Welcome to this podcastseries asking the question Can
art save us? In this series I'mtalking to artists, musicians,
filmmakers, actors, art lovers,and other creatives. I'm
exploring how curiosity andcourage not only creates great
art and fuels the arts, butcultivates a healthy mind too.
(00:24):
The same attitudes arecultivated in mindfulness
practice with scientific andevidence based results in the
treatment of depression, stressand anxiety. So I'm asking, Can
art save us and help change theglobal epidemic of mental
illness? And my guest this weekis Otis Mensah. He's the first
(00:46):
hip hop poet to be awarded apoet laureate title in the UK by
the City of Sheffield. He hashad numerous commissions and his
live performances include theGlastonbury Music Festival, Otis
describes his poetry as breakingdown barriers, smashing the
stuffy stereotype and remindingpeople that poetry is meant to
be for the people. He could alsobe described as the most
(01:10):
courageously vulnerable artistof the 21st century. Hello,
Otis, and welcome.
Hi, thank you so much for havingme and for the intro.
You're very welcome. It's justbeen phenomenal reading your
work your poetry, looking atyour performances. It's quite
(01:32):
astonishing, actually, the thebreadth and wealth of your work
already, what I was interestedin, just to begin with is when
you discovered your love forpoetic vulnerability where this
all began?
Yeah, sure. So I think thejourney really began for me as a
(01:52):
teenager, I was looking for somesort of expressionistic outlet,
sort of dealing with theexistential angst that you do as
a teenager. And sort of quarreland wrestles with identity. And
I think wanting to sort of growinto my own skin and understand
what it was that I wasinterested in, want, wanted to
(02:14):
understand what art spoke forme. And what what I gravitated
towards, naturally as a sort ofintuition, I guess, visceral
based thing. And I started to, Idon't know, experiment, I
started to write raps with, withfriends in the school yard. And
it was very fun, it was veryuseful. It felt meaningful. But
(02:36):
I did notice that I believe Iwas injecting my own sort of
insecurities into my art form,especially as it surrounded my
peers. And I guess what I saw atthe time as sort of like, a
shield of pretense sort ofcontinued. And I realized that
what I needed in terms of beingable to express myself freely
(02:59):
and I guess, to sort of liftedthe burden of, of whatever it
was that I was going through, Ineeded some form of honesty,
some form of radical honesty,and I might not have had the
words in the canon to verbalizethat at the time. But I think me
falling in love with hip hopmusic and hip hop poetry, really
(03:19):
spoke volumes for saying thatthat's what I needed. And I got
into hip hop artists like theroots. I got into hip hop
artists like Kid Curry, whonotoriously spoke openly about
depression and anxiety, andperhaps feeling a little like a
social pariah amongst theirpeers, especially in a landscape
(03:42):
that Cody, especially in alandscape that didn't really
allow him to do that. I think alot of his peers weren't really,
I guess, engaging in that levelof vulnerability that he was. So
that sort of stood out as atestament for me and, and sort
of allowed me to see that, oh,you can, it can be cool to be
(04:03):
honest and open and vulnerable.And not only can it be cool, but
it can also have a radicalimpact on your on your own
mental health and on your ownartistry, you know.
Yeah, absolutely. It's reallyinteresting, how we can change
meanings. So takingvulnerability, as an example.
(04:25):
You know, when actually it'srelationship is is so connected
to courage. But there areproblems around identity,
particularly, I think, with themodel of masculinity, where
courage is always around braveryand not expressing emotions,
because that would be a sign ofweakness, for example. So what
(04:48):
kinds of identity tensions Doyou think you were struggling
with when you were growing up?
Um, what kind of identity typetension? That's a big
existential question. I think,yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of
tensions around sort of notbeing caught not feeling
(05:11):
comfortable in my own skin. Ithink I was naturally an
introvert in perhaps a worldthat tells you, you know,
introversion is weird, or, youknow, it's like, it's not the
normal thing to do. I think Ialso had a slightly different, I
(05:32):
guess, passions, some slightlydifferent passions than the
people around me. I think a lotof my passions became hyper
specific. So when I foundsomething that I loved, like hip
hop music, I focus really intoit. And sometimes that can make
it hard to to sort of stepoutside of that and relate on a
(05:53):
social level. I think also, mynatural inclination was to sort
of isolate myself and I guess bebe more creative on my own, as
opposed to engaging in sort of,like typical social settings. So
I think that there on thesurface definitely created some
sort of, I don't know, socialtension, or sort of some sort of
(06:17):
otherness. And then, of course,you know, like, growing up as a
black mixed race person in, inthe UK, I was wrestling with,
with racialization, and overing.And, and all that sort of mixed
in a pot together. Where Hip Hopreally did allow me to find
(06:37):
solace in that hip hop reallygave me a language to sort of
understand my own state ofexistence. So yeah, yeah, I
think I think that thattransitional point, as a
teenager into early adulthood,was really impactful for me as I
started to discover the art anddelve into it in more depth.
(06:59):
And was that the shift fromwhere you talk about feeling
like an outcast?
Yeah, I mean, you know, what Ithink perhaps happened is that
it took a lot of the tension ofhaving an art form that I could
relate to took a lot of thetension of that which not only
(07:22):
meant that I could sort ofhadn't, like I said, have a have
a language and tounderstand what was going on
around me politically, socially.And what I felt politically and
socially, even, even on asurface level, even though it
was the, the sowing of thoseseeds, perhaps not in depth, but
(07:43):
not only did Hip Hop do that forme, but it also allowed me to
understand that it wasn't. So itwasn't so peculiar, that I was
interested in the things that Iwas interested in that I was
that I felt the way that I felt.And perhaps there was reasons,
societal reasons to why I feltlike that. So and I think I
(08:03):
think what it what it made me dois feel less so like an outcast
in the end, and maybe made mefeel like I had a sense of
community that perhaps wasn'tbound by by geography, and the
social geography, but perhapswas bound by something a little
more metaphysical. And somethingthat could sort of like trans
(08:23):
transcend borders, as I startedto engage with all across the
globe, across Europe, across theinternet. And yeah, it made me
feel less alone. So in turn, itallowed me to function better
with my, my peers, it allowed meto function better in, in, in
school, which is why often Iadvocate for poetry as a form of
(08:45):
thing as a form of engagementthat can sort of, you know, help
towards a flourishing emotionalintelligence on a flourishing I
guess, emotional understandingof oneself and, and once society
and social landscape justbecause I think it gives us a
(09:06):
second to understand to, Iguess, value ourselves and our
and our thoughts as individualsin a way that society doesn't
really give us a chance to, youknow, everything is so fast in
this sort of capitalist A isthat we never really get a
second to process emotions. Sowhen poetry allows for that
space, I think a lot of sort ofmetamorphosis can begin.
(09:30):
Yeah, because I've seen thatyou've also described yourself
as an advocate of patience andsifting through the noise. With
that relate to the kind ofmessage you're getting across.
Yeah, I think I think that'sthat's, that's very much what
what I intended to touch on isthis idea that capitalism just
(09:53):
doesn't really allow for thatour, our state of existence in
this world that we're in rightnow, just doesn't really allow
allow for us to processemotions, it doesn't really
allow for us to maybe even sitwith sit with our, our traumas
or you know, it's like thingsthat I have grown to call
everyday traumas. And the reasonI call them everyday traumas is
(10:14):
because society forces us tosort of skip past them so, so
quickly and so. So hurryhurriedly. So I think art allows
for a space for us to recognizethat and perhaps start to think
about, well, what impact didsocieties, societies voice have a
(10:38):
sort of what what impact didsociety's voice have on my
psyche? On my emotional wellbeing? And how is that impacted
my life? And how can I changethat? If I want to change that?
Or how can I just grow tounderstand it? You know?
Yeah, I think what you callunadulterated honesty, is seems
to be really core to, to how youwrite, and you're quite
(11:03):
prepared, it seems to have thatexposure, which is an act of
bravery. Because that's a hardthing to do, isn't it?
Yeah, it's definitely a hardthing to do, I think I'm perhaps
lucky in the sense that the artform that I fell in love with
(11:24):
naturally pushed me to be to beas open as possible naturally
pushed me to be as vulnerable aspossible, because it was about
sharing your unique experienceof the world, you know, and, and
I think what what happens is,when we do I don't know what
what I like to call, I don'tknow, some sort of introspective
(11:46):
excavation, or some sort of deepdive within what we find is our
true, unique experience of theworld and of perception and
reality. Not to say that, Idon't think it doesn't have its
dangers, you know, I think, youknow, sometimes it can be, it
(12:07):
can be way more valid, and waymore sort of wise to, to go into
those deep, vulnerable feelingsin your own time, whilst not
pushing them to create aproduct, whether that's a piece
of poetry for art's sake, orwhether it's for, you know, from
societal pressure to do so. ButI think it's about what feels
(12:28):
right to you and nurturing,nurturing the best way that you
can feel open and vulnerable andhonest with yourself and not
feel pressurized, you know?
Yeah, because when you talkabout that deep dive, that
process, if you like, of selfreflection, sometimes it's
(12:48):
talked about, you know, inmindfulness practice, but that,
that chance you have that deepdive is also a chance, just to
simply be curious. And even thatact of curiosity is healthy, did
you find that? Your curiosity ofwords is immense? So did you
(13:10):
find that you kind of allowedyourself to be in that space? It
was therapeutic in some way?
Yeah, that's such a greatquestion. I mean, I believe my
my curiosity for language is,it's an interesting one. It's
paradoxical, and it's full ofnuance. I grew up in a very
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faith based background, I grewup in the church. And I grew up
having to read the Bible in orhaving the Bible biblical
scripture, Scripture read to me.And what that does, in a way is
give somebody who is younger,who perhaps doesn't have a grasp
of certain metaphorical imageryor certain vocabulary, it puts
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it puts the vocabulary in theirface, and, and it shows them
that there is an emotionalimpact to the language without
there having to always be alogical, theoretical impact. You
know, I think about like thechurch setting when something is
said that perhaps I didn't havea logical grasp on in terms of
(14:15):
its vocabulary, I still noticedthat there was an emotional
impact of it. And I think thatwas the same for the
congregation. If the pastor wasto read a biblical scripture,
that felt right, that rolled offthe tongue, right. That I think
the the understanding and thedeeper message of what is being
said under the words, reaches onon a on a more sort of
(14:38):
vibrational emotional level,even if the language doesn't
quite reach our level ofunderstanding. And I think that
somewhat allows for deeperunderstandings of language to
take language and think, Well,how can we break this apart and
look at it deeper into deeperbeyond its surface sort of
thing. And I think that thattaught me really early on to to
(15:00):
engage in poetry, you know, it'slike I think it taught me, like
an ease with language where Ididn't have to obsess over. Am I
using the right? literary form?does this word mean this is this
being used in the right context?Because I think often going into
an art form with that kind ofmindset around language can sort
(15:22):
of stifle us and, and put us ina box way too early. And I am
also very, very dyslexic. So Ithink naturally, my tendency is
to take a word, and, you know,mis misuse it. And I think
sometimes that can be abeautiful thing, because
sometimes it allows you tounderstand something that
(15:43):
perhaps you wanted to say thatyou didn't, you didn't know, you
know, and it perhaps sometimesallows you to get a way more
playful grasp of language. Soyeah, my relationship to
language has definitely beensomewhat therapeutic. And it's
definitely definitely been anemotional relationship, rather
than a logical relationship.
(16:07):
Yeah, and that seems to describea really important relationship
around freedom, freeing uplanguage. So we talk about
breaking barriers, don't waitsocietal barriers, whether it's,
you know, race, identity, sex,there are far too many barriers
that that each of us can face.But it's interesting when you
(16:29):
start to actually consider thebarriers and confines of
language. And your reflection onthat. Yeah, your reflection on
that is really sending out animportant message.
I mean, I think it's so truewhat you say, because I think, I
don't know systems of power andoppression that exist within,
(16:52):
within our society often rely onlanguage to keep us confined.
You know, when when you look atthe, the words that have come
about from, from capitalism,from, from systems of power in
this society in this world, wesee that the language that has
(17:12):
been that has been sort of thatwe've been conditioned to engage
in or believe over time, is verymuch sort of like the pillars
that hold those systems of powerin place, amongst many other
things, of course, but I thinkyou're right, in pointing out
the language is definitely acore element and sort of player
(17:33):
in that sort of, in that powerstruggle, you know, so and I
think, often you see that whenwhen we start to have
discussions as as, as acommunity about breaking down,
or you're speaking againstcertain systems of oppression, I
think often people have an issuewith language. And that always
seems to be a cause forcontention. So it's definitely
(17:54):
something that we need to thinkabout. And think, maybe think
about ways that we can, that wecan get rid of that we can drop
our attachment to language,because I think sometimes we
have unhealthy attachment towords that perhaps can just, you
know, stifle us further.
(18:16):
Yeah, I think that's reallysignificant. Because you can
easily see language as ahierarchy as well. There can be
academic elitism, for example,you know, that can inhibit other
people. Hence, you know, howinteresting it is that in many
ways, you're kind ofrevolutionising the hip hop
(18:36):
space in terms of poetry?Because, of course, it's so easy
for people to leap to thestereotypes of gangsta rap and
violence. Yeah. But actually,you might argue that it always
was a space for poetry andtherapy. Yeah, so,
so, so beautiful that you saythat, because I think you're
right, this is usually theracist sort of narrative that
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that, that gives birth to itselffrom the society that you know,
like hip hop, or let's say, thisart form that comes from black
people, is something that isviolent, or uncivilized, or, you
know, something that is overlyconcerned with, with materialism
and material wealth, and and Ithink the issue is that there is
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a version of the art form thatgets played out, and that gets
sort of like, pushed to thecenter. And I believe that's
very much because we live in acapitalist society that also
speaks to these themes ofmaterial wealth that speaks to
these themes of you know, thatspeaks to these themes of, I
(19:42):
guess, oppressive systems ofpower. But when you, you're
right, when you look way deeperinto the culture, and it doesn't
even take much digging torealize, you see that the very
core foundations of hip hop wereto de-escalate systems of white
supremacy de-escalate systems ofre Racism, de-escalate and not
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not only de-escalate, but combatthese systems of power, right at
the core on a community level,they're very radical and the
very emotional, the birth of hiphop came from this idea of the
safe space the house party waswas very much a setting where
hip hop culture was born fromthe end, you would have people
putting putting cardboard ontothe floor of people dancing as a
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means to get out there, there asa means to express themselves.
But and what that did in turnwas not only create a safe space
for emotional flourishing forexpression, but it also meant
that in a society where, wherethere's lots of poverty, where
there's lots of corruption,where there's the pressure of a
racist, sort of like governmentand society coming down in on
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the community, it meant thatthis is a place where we can get
our anger, you know, this is aplace that where we can, where
we can speak about our justifiedanger against society. This is a
this is a place where we have avoice where we have a platform.
So that's really at the core ofhip hop. And I believe that's
why it is so radicallyvulnerable and honest, when you
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look at the core of the culturein the office, you know.
Yeah, absolutely. And thatvulnerability, of course, is is
often expressions of realcourage to do that. I don't know
if you have necessarily seen thedocumentary series of the hip
hop series that looks at thesongs that shook America. And
(21:31):
it's really, it's reallypowerful. I think you
might see that on a BBC iPlayercatch up? Yeah, I think it would
be of interest to because itidentifies six songs. And it's
from the point of view that itis shifting from stereotypes of
hardcore gangster rap, and andit's almost like violence for
(21:53):
violence sake. And it's muchmore in the territory of the
purpose of what all of the hiphop artists were doing. And they
were changing barriers. So evenif you went into the 90s, then,
in terms of mainstream awarenessrun, Run DMC and Aerosmith
Walk this Way, would have been areal kind of mainstream hit for
(22:15):
a lot of people that wouldn'thave really been engaging with
hip hop. And of course, whatthey did was really powerful
because they were bringing blackand white audiences together,
which is crazy, that we stillhave to even reference that
because, you know, that's whatDean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.
Were doing. And Frank Sinatra,you know, but even now, we're
(22:36):
relying on music and in theseexamples, hip hop culture to do
that.
Yeah, no, I will definitelycheck that out. Yeah, yeah, that
sounds really interesting. Yeah,I'll definitely give that a
watch.
Yeah, because I think it's justa reminder that artists don't
(22:58):
necessarily have the luxury ofcreating there art, it's very
much about in being in an arenaof struggle. Yeah, it's hard for
any artists, you know, it's hardfor any artist who signs or in a
record deal. So of course, it'scoming from barriers of
discrimination anyway, I justthink it really highlights that
(23:19):
our is so often an arena ofstruggle.
Yeah. And I think just to sortof like reiterate, to go back to
that point, I also do not have aproblem with with, let's say,
quote, unquote, gangsta rap orquote, unquote, like any, any
rap that plays to thisstereotype that we spoke about,
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because I believe that it'strue, cool, you can sort of see,
the story has been told. And so,you know, it's like, when people
are speaking from the realm ofexperience, I think that there's
nothing more sort of like,valuable than that. And I think,
I think that's how we've grownto understand like many
(24:03):
different experiences of manydifferent peoples, you know, is
by engaging with they are, Ithink what my issue is, is when
you have outer groups, peoplewho are outside of the
community, let's namely, like inhistorical sensors, in terms of
hip hop, sort of like whiterecord, label owners come in and
say, Well, this is themarketable idea of what we need
(24:26):
to represent of the culture.This is the thing that we are
going to congratulate more thananything else. And this is the
thing that we're going to give aplatform to rather than anything
else, I think that that thenbecomes an issue because it
becomes more who is in controlof the narrative here. And then
what sort of sort of racism isallowed to be injected into the
projection of the culture. Andas how society perceives
(24:50):
it, you know, so yeah, I thinkit's all about who is in control
of the narrative. And that'swhen it gets a little shady.
When you look at thingshistorically, you start to see
the record companies withswooped in, you know, offer
somebody like $100,000, orsomething of that nature, and
then create a golden standard ofwhat should be created and what
should be projected in order togain some sort of financial
(25:13):
success. Which of which, ofcourse, is manipulation and a
form of cultural violence, youknow?
Yeah, so branding is part ofyour control problem, isn't it
that product power of marketing.And I think that's probably an
even heavier burden on artists,because even with that awareness
(25:35):
in mind, it's another set ofbarriers, isn't it? It's
another, it's another David andGoliath battle. Have you managed
the sense of branding aroundyourself or your own work?
That's interesting is not reallysomething that I, I give too
much thought to. Especially ifwe go back to this idea of
(25:59):
honesty and vulnerability, Iguess that becomes your guiding
principle in a way. And not onlyhonestly, just in sort of, like
literary expression, but honestyin sort of what feels right,
musically, what feels right, interms of the choices you make
within the community, what youknow what's like what feels
(26:20):
right. And that's also was a,that's also a constant battle,
because you're kind of in thissystem that we live in, we're
constantly having to weigh upwhat feels right, versus what is
going to allow us to earn somesort of financial compensation
for the work that we do, youknow, and sometimes those two
things don't always fittogether. It's beautiful when
they do when they're harmonious,and you can do what feels right,
(26:42):
and it earns you money. But manytimes, that's not the case. So
it's a constant. It's a constantbattle to, like it's a constant
moralistic and ethical battle ina way. And sometimes you just
have to let your your gut guideyou and sort of your intuition
guide you there, you know.
Yeah, absolutely. I wanted tosee if you knew the work of a
(27:06):
research professor Brene Brown,because she became like a viral
hit on TED Talks, you may havecome across her work. If not, I
I think it will interestyou. Yeah, because she's done a
massive study, where she talksabout the courage to be
vulnerable and you talk aboutthe power of vulnerable
(27:27):
expression. And I think there'slots and lots of synergies
there. And she describesvulnerability as our "most
accurate measurement of courage."And I wondered what your
thoughts were on that?
Yeah, that's so interesting.Yeah, I mean, to an extent I
(27:53):
agree with them. Like, I thinkthat vulnerability is definitely
a, I guess, a more sort ofobjective way of measuring
courage, because you can sort ofsay, well, this person put
themselves in the sort ofposition to be exposed, whether
that's exposing an insecurity,whether that's sort of, you
(28:17):
know, exposing themselves bysharing an art form that is that
is difficult or engaging with anart form that is difficult. But
I think, yeah, what that does isit does create a sense of
community and it does reallysort of like unite people. And I
think that's, that's why I fellin love with the art form that I
did is because in let's say, KidCurry being open about his
depression, about feelingoutcast, it created a point of
(28:40):
relation, I didn't feel so alonein those in those situations,
but it took his courage to dothat. Then there's, there's a
dichotomy sort of inside of methat says, whilst vulnerability
can be a form of courage, it canalso be very performative. And
there's, there's, we see thishistorically, and we see this in
(29:00):
our current landscape thatcapitalism have has a sneaky way
of injecting itself into anysort of radical, I guess,
radical activity. And I thinkcapitalism has a way of doing
that with vulnerability where itbecomes about how honest and how
open can you be in order tomarket yourself as such, you
(29:22):
know, and it's like, you havebrands sort of latching on to
the idea of vulnerability inorder for them to sell a
product. And I think we see thiswith with concepts of like self
care, for example, you know,self care being somewhat
something radical in as we said,in a constant rush of things, it
could be so meaningful to takethat moment of self care if if
(29:43):
what that moment means is givingtime for your emotional
flourishing for giving time forwhatever it is usually need.
However, what we see is we seesort of brands being like, take
time to eat your favorite brandof ice cream or you know, take
some time to go shopping at theGucci store or somewhere, so
capitalism has a sneaky way ofusurping these radical ideas.
(30:06):
And I also am aware thatthere's, there's a paradox in
vulnerability, being honestand vulnerable, sometimes it can
be unwise, and it can beunhealthy, it can be hurtful,
you know, if we push people tobe vulnerable at the wrong time,
we can perhaps disturb traumasthat weren't ready to be
disturbed, that weren't ready tosort of be explored, or perhaps
(30:28):
in a landscape or a space thatwasn't safe for those things to
be exposed. So I think it isvery much down to the
individual's volition and sortof using the guiding principle
for that. And, and also, I thinksometimes, people who have been
the most courageous, perhapsdon't have the luxury of being
the most vulnerable sometimes,you know, people who have been
(30:50):
through traumatic events whohave survived unimaginable
things, you know, I think about,I think about some of my family
heritage, and some of my familythat escaped Nazi Germany and
sort of survived the Holocaust.And I think, like that was
already such a mountainous thingto survive, that perhaps being
(31:16):
vulnerable about it and speakingopenly about it would be would
be tremendously difficult to tobring up all that trauma
straightaway. And so I thinkit's, I think, sometimes we've
gone we have exercised thatcourage to the, to the maximum,
and we need, then a safe spaceat some point to talk about it.
(31:37):
But sometimes vulnerability inin the moment isn't always the
isn't always the best option,you know.
Yeah. And because also, it'sremoving a relationship that can
arrive with shame, you know, ifyou feel vulnerable, and you
associate that to being weak,and then you feel ashamed, which
(31:59):
none of none of which isjustified. But unfortunately,
it's so often the connectionsthat are made, it's indeed being
very careful, whether it's yourown self reflection, or in a
therapy type relationship, thatas you approach vulnerability,
you're not inviting in shame.The mind is too good at
(32:20):
automatic negative thinking, andprejudiced, habitual thinking.
And I think what your poetry isdoing is literally smashing
those barriers of language. Aswe mentioned earlier, you're
you're inviting people to thinkagain, about their own thoughts.
(32:41):
Thank you so much. Yeah, just anadditional thought on that, I
think. Sometimes it's atremendous privilege to to be
vulnerable in an artistic sense,you know, sometimes, I believe
it's, it's, it's privileged,that also allows for that, you
know, and, and when I say that,I mean, to be vulnerable, in
(33:02):
this artistic sense, sometimesrequires space for reflection,
and space for philosophy. And,and if you're in a place in
society, where you areconstantly having to work, where
you're constantly having toexercise all your emotional,
physical energy, just to merelysurvive, then this idea of
(33:24):
artistic vulnerability becomesvery much a sort of privilege.
And and something that noteverybody can can exercise the
time for, you know?
Oh, absolutely. I think that isreally, really significant. And
it's one of the factors that'sproblematic in terms of how the
art suffers from elitism.Because, yeah, there's a lot of
(33:47):
privilege in order to be able tobe an artist, unless, of course,
you are in that, that space ofsuch deep exposure, that risk is
what you know, anyway, it's kindof one extreme or the other. Mm
hmm. No, I think I think itreally does remind you that art
(34:15):
is very much a radical act,depending particularly on the
circumstances of the artist.Yeah. Do you feel that, do you
feel radical in yourown right from that point of
view?
Oh, interesting. Um, I mean, Iwould, it would be so nice to
say yes, it would be so nice andlike, it would align with what I
(34:40):
believe outside of outside likeif I was to separate myself,
from me engaging in my art, tosay that the art form was
radical would be in line with mybelief system. But if I was to
be 100% honest, I thinksometimes selfish intention is
the reason why I would createThe art form that I create, and
(35:01):
then my hope is somehow somehowmiraculously, in me being honest
through some form of selfish,selfish intention. And that
selfish intention beingsometimes to literally see
myself represented on the page,or to archive my very existence
in a world that I feelconstantly fearful about, or in
(35:22):
a world that I feel constantly.like I have no grasp or control
over in a world where I feel mymortality. These are somewhat
all selfish reasons. But what myhope is that in churning that
out, we all exist under thisthing called the human
condition. And the hope is thatpeople will do relate, and the
(35:43):
hope is that it can go on tohave some sort of transformative
effect or some sort of communitycentric effect. But I would like
to think it's radical. To betotally honest, I think it is
more self induced, and I thinkit is more sort of like an
introspective, intimaterelationship, you know?
(36:08):
Yeah, of course, we're talkingtoday in the horrifying context
of of a war of the war onUkraine. And yeah, the
existential threats, that war,the vulnerability that the world
is facing, you know, that gripof anxiety, and the horror of
(36:32):
the kind of paralysis we allhave around it as well, it's,
you know, something so such anatrocity can't just be stopped.
I wondered, even if you hadthoughts on that kind of global
scale around trauma, when wementioned trauma earlier, you
know, the importance of beingable to express trauma, albeit
(36:54):
carefully so that there's nofurther damage. Can you even
begin to imagine how there'sgoing to be expressions of
trauma out of Ukraine alone, youknow, let alone Yemen, let alone
Afghanistan, let alone Syria,for example. And I just wondered
(37:16):
what your thoughts were, whenyou look at all of these men who
are being told to stay andfight, what your own anxieties
are around around their trauma.
Uh, you know, is it's horrifyingand, and it's, it's an exact
representation of where we arein the world right now. And I
(37:38):
honestly and wholeheartedly donot have the level of wisdom and
understanding to, to when toengage, hopefully, in that in
that conversation, because Ithink I can only ever speak from
a level of privilege I have notengaged in any, I've not been
(38:00):
affected by immediately by anyform of war. I mean,
historically, and in my family,I have been affected by forms of
war and forms of racialoppression. But I can, I can
definitely not speak on on sortof that, that level of trauma,
because I think, I think oftenin we maneuver through society,
(38:22):
and we see, you know, we'reseeing a constant influx of, of
pain and murder and death. Andthough it is horrifying, I think
what it does, by not having thisproximity towards it, and not
having a true understanding ofit, and also not having, as I
said, back to this capitalisttendency to not give us time to
actually process these things.What it truly does is create a
(38:45):
sense of numb. And I thinksometimes, in my case, that
numbing is coming from aproximity, a distant proximity
to to war and death and which is,which is a sense of privilege.
So I truly cannot speak on it,you know? All that all I can say
is I know that it's horrifyingwhat is happening in in Ukraine.
(39:09):
It's also horrifying, the murderthat has been happening in
Palestine, the murder thathappens in Syria. And I think,
sadly, what what happens is wewe often as a western society,
and as a product of whitenessand racism in society, can so
(39:31):
easily distance ourselves fromthe murder that happens in
Syria, the murder that happensin Palestine, Afghanistan, but
we all of a sudden feelsomething so visceral about
what's happening in Ukraine aswe should, as we should feel,
what is happening, but I thinkit definitely makes a note of
(39:52):
our level of privilege and how,what speaks to us, you know, and
yeah, I personally I do notbelieve in any form of war, I do
not believe in any form ofmilitary, I do not believe in. I
think the end result is alwaysmurder and death. And I think
(40:13):
the point is to always thinkabout well, how can we? How can
we support communities andindividuals and oppressed
peoples who were always impactedthe worst by these situations?
And yeah, I am too, I'm fartoo, sort of my my privilege is
far too comfy for me to trulytalk on the trauma that those
(40:34):
people are experiencing in realtime, you know.
What you do, however, do in yourwork is talk very clearly about
compassion. But in terms ofcompassionate action, you know,
it's not just a point of view, Ithink it's interesting, where
you describe yourself, I'llquote, you as a "catalytic
(40:56):
converter, transforming externalworld toxins into poems of hope."
And I thought that was reallypowerful, because it's kind of
stating your purpose, you know,your poetic purposes,
compassionate, compassionateaction. How would you expand on
that?
(41:17):
Yeah, no, thank you so much forcalling that. So that's, that's
a line from from the bookSafe and Metamorphosis and yeah,
how would I expand on that Ithink it very much is the access
to everything, all the access, toeverything that we've been
speaking about, you know, thisidea that the world gives us
something, and if you have timeto process it, if you have the
(41:39):
mental space, and, and, youknow, the opportunity to process
it, what we can do is createsomething beautiful out of that
not only something beautifulthat other people can really
relate to, but something thatallows us to understand our
state of existence, and ourstate of struggle. So I'm very
much for thinking about how totake the scenic route with
(42:01):
language, thinking about how tobeautify what we have our pain
and, and adorn it in a way thatthat we can experience and have
joy out of it. You know,there's, there's the biblical
scripture, whatever, what,whatever the devil has made, for
bad God will make for good, youknow, and to take that outside
(42:22):
of it's sort of like biblicalcontext or the, you know, it's
like, it's spiritualconnotations. But to just put it
into the realm of art, as itrelates to life, whatever pain
and whatever trauma has been,has been forced onto us. I
believe art gives us anopportunity to not only find
therapy in it, but also find joyin it, you know, at some point.
(42:47):
Yeah, yeah. And it's, it'sremaining mindful of the power
of optimism and hope and joy, tonot only be defeated, you know,
by all the stresses and horrorsof life, Otis, what, what would
you say, explains why a poem canspeak, but we may not talk to
(43:11):
each other?
Wow, that's such an interestingquestion. Huh? That's, that's
that, that really speaks to me.I think it's because I think
there's many reasons but I thinkone of the reasons is because
vulnerability being core to thisquestion, I think, we struggle
(43:32):
to, we struggle to faceourselves and we see ourselves
in other people. And it's, it'salmost, it's almost sometimes
too much of a high volume ofourselves to experience, you
know, to look somebody in theface and experience their
humaneness. And do that withcompassion, with empathy, with
understanding, is sometimes fartoo overstimulating for our for
(43:54):
ourselves to sort of bearespecially when we're dealing
with our own insecurities,especially when we're dealing
with our own societal, I don'tknow, struggles and the systems
of oppression and trying tonavigate those, sometimes it's
so hard to see those and relateto those and other people, which
is sad, and it's a bit of acurse of the human existence.
But then I do believe that theart is a form of is a bridge in
(44:17):
that sense. And it allows us toput ourselves in the piece of
art in a way that maybe is alittle more digestible, or maybe
speaks to something that's alittle more emotionally
universal, where we can see ourour fellow person in something
that we can understand, youknow, in something that we can
process in our own time. Somehowsomething, something of what
(44:40):
Jericho Brown, the incrediblepoet said comes to mind, and he
speaks about poetry. I'mparaphrasing, of course, but he
speaks about poetry having arelationship to beauty, and the
like the aesthetic of beauty,and you know how he would relate
that to our art. Our need for trees you know, it's a
(45:02):
relationship of beauty, we don'tquite know why we need trees or
why we need poetry. But if wedidn't have them, we would
definitely notice it andsomething would be a lot more
bleak. So I find that I findwhat he said, they're so
beautiful. And it allows me tosort of resonate with this idea
(45:23):
that perhaps something doesn'talways have to be analyzed, or,
you know, sort of picked apartobjectively and logically, but
sometimes things can just speakto us emotionally, you know,
thinking about back to what wespoke about with the, the level
of language that we that weresonate to the emotional side
of language, the the emotionalface to language, and thinking
(45:45):
about what transformative impactthat can have on us, as opposed
to was always living in ourhead, you know, always, it
always coming from our head,what happens if we were to allow
it to come from something alittle lower down, you know?
Yeah. I'm interested in yourexperience of becoming a poet
(46:09):
laureate. And your experience ofmanaging that label, if you
like, it kind of makes youalmost like an official
spokesperson, or, or does itimpose anything that you didn't
expect? I just wondered whatkind of judgments you may have
dealt with?
Yeah, sure. I mean, when I, whenI was asked to do the role in
(46:33):
2018, it was it was a privilege.And it was also sort of like a
big, anxiety inducing idea aswell, because I was aware that
there was a responsibilitybehind it. And I was aware that
I was going to be askedquestions that I perhaps
sometimes wouldn't be prepared,wouldn't have been prepared to
(46:53):
answer, you know. And I thinkwith a role that has been
traditionally exercised underideas of elitism ideas of white
supremacy, it was always goingto be something radical to, for
me to be the poet laureate,especially with no literary
training, traditionally, noliterary training, given the
(47:17):
fact that I didn't come from,let's say, a classical or
traditional poetry back ground,my, my artistic influences from
the realm of music is from therealm of jazz, from the realm of
hip hop, from the realm ofspoken word and performance
poetry, which often gets snuffedby the elitist idea, you know,
(47:38):
when trying to exist in spacesof academia or spaces of more
traditional poetry. So I startedto learn that very quick, I
started to realize that that wasthe case. However, on the flip
side, it was very easy to ignorethat in the face of all the
beauty that the role broughtabout, you know, I got the
opportunity to speak to groupsof young people that I would
(47:59):
have never had the opportunityto talk about this beautiful art
form that I learned through hiphop, this art form of
expression, this art form of rappoetry. And I think it was
meaningful to talk to peopleabout that and sort of let them
know what sort of transformativeeffect it had on me and sort of
see if there is grounds andspace for it to have that
(48:20):
transformative effect on them.You know, I've got to do things
like deliver my first publiclecture on hip hop philosophy
and poetry and, and I got todeliver my deliver seminars as
part of the the actualliterature curriculum at
Sheffield University and thingsof that nature. So yeah, the
(48:43):
beauty far outweighed thechallenges. But yeah, it was
always interesting for me to beasked sort of like, who are your
favorite poets and them alwayssort of expecting me to, I don't
know, say William Wordsworth forI remember, when I first when I
first became poet laureate,there was a there was some sort
(49:03):
of like sub article on theonline version, I think it was
in The Star of how this mentoris not a real poet, William
Wordsworth. And I always foundthat quite amusing. Especially
when in the face of yeah, it'dbe like one of my favorite poets
are Black Thoughtoot of The Roots andsort of seeing people, you know,
(49:24):
shake under, under the idea thatthis elitist idea couldn't
continue on, but also shakeunder the idea that perhaps they
weren't the expert, perhaps theyhad something to learn perhaps
there was a level of curiositythere too, which is always
beautiful. It's always beautifulto shake people's ideas about
(49:45):
art and shake people'spreconceived ideas about the all
that matters, in our culture andin in our personal lives, you
know, so it was an interestingjourney.
Yeah, absolutely. And whenyou're facing those challenges,
you know, because you have a newlabel or a new definition or
identity, you know what you do.When you feel fearful? How do
(50:11):
you manage it?
Yes. No, that's, that's a greatquestion. I think, I think to be
honest, when it comes to sharingmy art, I tend not to feel
fearful. And that can sound sortof egotistical, or it can even
sound as though it's coming froma place of deep courage. But
(50:32):
sometimes I don't think it is, Ithink sometimes it comes from a
place of naivety, you know, Iwas definitely raised in an art
form, that tells you that yourideas matter that your ideas
that as, as I spoke aboutbefore, that you have a unique
story to, to sort of share. Andso once you grasp the feeling of
(50:55):
that, even though the ID can beshaken by by, you know, as odd
as we compare ourselves to otherpeople, and our self esteem can
often be on the chopping block.So you know what, but when
that's not the case, and whenyou do have this form of
unbridled self assurance in yourstory, as I think all of us
should do. Fear isn't a factorthat that seeps into sharing our
(51:20):
you know, so I have aninteresting relationship with
fear because I experienced feara lot. In my day to day life, I
experienced fear a lot. When itcomes to thinking about
mortality when it comes tothinking about choices when it
comes to thinking about societalexpectations, should I say, or
(51:41):
family or, you know, any of theabove romance or any of the
above, I experienced so muchfear. And it's so beautiful to
me that art is this safe space,where actually fear is something
that that can't see its way inand sort of art and expression
is this imperishable, unbridled,unbridled state of sort of, sort
(52:04):
of existence and sharing, youknow?
Yeah. From that point of view,is the performance space, the
live performance space naturalto you? Or is that an act of
courage?
I would love to say it's an actof courage, but it is 100%
natural to me, I feel a littlemore closer to the person that I
(52:29):
am, when I'm performing onstage, I feel like I can truly
be myself. That's not to saythat there's not fabrication and
that's not to say that there'snot performance, given the exist
on the stage like onstage. Butit just feels aligned with what
I have always conditioned myselfto believe is my purpose. You
know, so I think two thingsalign my my childhood teenage
(52:53):
self is saying, yes, you will,right. And, on the on the flip
side, I'm also getting somehealthy, some healthy dopamine
and some healthy, sort of seeingmy ideas represented in the
world and seeing them you know,you create in this sort of
introvert, intimate space thatis often cut off from the rest
(53:15):
of the world, or just your lifeas an artist, creating and
ongoing with your creativeendeavors, is sometimes
isolating. So to see your ideascome to life, as they pertain to
people and how people feel andpeople's emotions and actual,
tangible, non ineffable physicalcommunity is so, so joyous, and
(53:38):
it's so so meaningful. Sowhenever I get chances to
perform, it just feels right andfear doesn't get chance to sort
of niggle its way in.
Yeah, it's really interesting.It's a really interesting way of
being able to control fear isn'ttaking over. It does seem that
(54:00):
there's a role for encouragingcuriosity and courage in ways
that aren't asking too much, butto really inviting some sense of
freedom and some sense ofownership instead of what can
feel like capitalisticoppression a dumbing down or a
(54:21):
numbing, like you said earlier,you know, that starts to deprive
people from their own acts ofcuriosity and courage. Would you
say there's a case to almostencourage that, to encourage
engaging in being curious andbeing courageous in ways that
which may be through art?
(54:45):
Yeah, I think, you know, I feellike that that's the, that's the
resonance of which our lifevibrates best, you know, when we
can feel that our courage issort of pushing us in to our,
our sense of purpose, or pushingus into a space where we not
only feel comfortable, but gobeyond feeling comfortable, and
(55:07):
we're able to flourish. And whatdoes that mean? That means that
we're able to emotionally acceptourselves, perhaps even able to
physically accept ourselves,despite societal, society's
voice always having something tosay about that. I think when we
can feel like that, we're in ourtrue, we're in our true skin,
(55:30):
and we're in our true sort ofpurpose for life, if you will.
And I'm a firm believer ofwhatever realm of vehicle that
that takes that that's okay. Youknow, I believe artists can
exist in any form and walk oflife. You know, an artist
doesn't always have to besomebody who creates the product
of art. But an artist can besomebody who injects their
(55:51):
artistry into their social work,who injects that artistry into
their therapy, who injects thatartistry into the way that they
engage with the community. Ithink there's so many things in
this, there's so many thingsthat we lack in the society. So
if you have found a way tocreate a solution for for the
(56:12):
huge, sort of boundless lackthat that this world gives us, I
think that's an art in and ofitself. And I think that's in
line with a humanistic andsoulful purpose.
Yeah, yeah. And purpose is soimportant. As you know, having a
clear purpose is so important.Yeah. Unbelievably, it's, the
(56:38):
the hour flies by too fast. Butthere is a question I'd like
to ask, it's amazing how fast itgoes, you'll have to be a guest
in every season. But um,something I would be interested
in, in closing on is in responseto the series, the question
(57:01):
that's posed "Can art save us?" I'mreally interested in your
description of art, and I'llquote you. "Pain gave birth to
art. Although they never did seeeye to eye, art cared only for
liberation from its predecessor."Yeah, I love that. And I just
(57:22):
wondered if you wanted to, youknow, for the listeners to talk
about, you know, what was inyour mind and what it is you're
saying?
Yeah, no, thank you so much forsharing that. So then then
again, that's another quotefrom, from the book Safe
Metamorphosis. And, you know, itwas speaking to this idea that
the artist always has to delveinto a cauldron or, or a puddle
(57:49):
or a well of pain in order tocreate something. And I thought
about that idea. And I thoughtabout how meaningful it is to
see our pain represented in away that I said, is sort of
beautified, but alsounderstandable, and that we can
relate to create a sense ofcommunity. But then I think
(58:10):
about the sort of negativeconnotations that that might
have, does that mean artistshave to exist under a constant
state of proximity to pain? AndI thought about that, well, no,
actually, it doesn't. Becauseas the line says, art really
doesn't care too much about yourpain, it really only cares about
the transformation. It reallyonly cares about the
(58:31):
metamorphosis that can come fromit. And that's where art can
sort of save the world andchange the world. I don't
believe art for art's sake, cansave the world and change the
world. But I believe art'sability to have sort of
liberation from the pain that wego through, can really spark the
(58:52):
change in society that we need,you know, you know, I think
about any form of socialmovement that has existed, I
always say I dare you to findthe piece of art that wasn't
playing in the background thatwasn't fulfilling people with
the soul that they needed tokeep on going. And so in that
sense, yes, art, art has, has agreat need to sort of see itself
(59:16):
free from pain. And I think whatwe can do is we can learn from
that and inject that into oursocieties, into our communities,
and just into our ownpersonalized lives.
Yeah, and then that's such abeautiful and important
sentiment and statement really,again, when we're in a war
(59:37):
context, unbelievably, you knowthat the issue of pain. I
can't thank you enough for yourtime and your generosity of your
time today. We'll make sure thatlisteners know where to find you
in the text to the podcastseries. Just to close are there
(59:59):
any any final words you'd liketo share in terms of whoever is
going to be listening? Whetherit's words of hope, or just a
sentiment that you'd like peopleto take away from listening to
this podcast today?
(01:00:20):
I guess something that resonateswith me is, is this idea that
that we shouldn't sortof be confined by by rules and,
and sort of whatever it is thatyou're trying to engage in, in
whatever art form that you seeyourself being freed by or freed
inside of participating in,don't let yourself be stifled by
(01:00:43):
the rules of that art form, orthe traditions of that art form.
Whether that's literary modes,whether that's conventions, and
again, I think, understandingthat we have such a deep sense
of purpose within within us,that doesn't always have to be
(01:01:03):
sort of represented logically,but sometimes can have soulful
and emotional meaning and power.And sometimes that's completely
enough, you know, so theeverybody's story matters that
everybody has something toshare. And that we can share
that our own volition in our owntime, using our own forms of
(01:01:24):
communication and our own formsof art. And that's meaningful
enough. Thank you. Thank you somuch, Otis, and I am very much
looking forward to the next bookof poems and following your
work. Thank you again. Thank youso much.
Welcome to this podcastseries asking the question Can
art save us? In this series I'mtalking to artists, musicians,
filmmakers, actors, art lovers,and other creatives. I'm
exploring how curiosity andcourage not only creates great
art and fuels the arts, butcultivates a healthy mind too.
(00:24):
The same attitudes arecultivated in mindfulness
practice with scientific andevidence based results in the
treatment of depression, stressand anxiety. So I'm asking, Can
art save us and help change theglobal epidemic of mental
illness? And my guest this weekis Otis Mensah. He's the first
(00:46):
hip hop poet to be awarded apoet laureate title in the UK by
the City of Sheffield. He hashad numerous commissions and his
live performances include theGlastonbury Music Festival, Otis
describes his poetry as breakingdown barriers, smashing the
stuffy stereotype and remindingpeople that poetry is meant to
be for the people. He could alsobe described as the most
(01:10):
courageously vulnerable artistof the 21st century. Hello,
Otis, and welcome.
Hi, thank you so much for havingme and for the intro.
You're very welcome. It's justbeen phenomenal reading your
work your poetry, looking atyour performances. It's quite
(01:32):
astonishing, actually, the thebreadth and wealth of your work
already, what I was interestedin, just to begin with is when
you discovered your love forpoetic vulnerability where this
all began?
Yeah, sure. So I think thejourney really began for me as a
(01:52):
teenager, I was looking for somesort of expressionistic outlet,
sort of dealing with theexistential angst that you do as
a teenager. And sort of quarreland wrestles with identity. And
I think wanting to sort of growinto my own skin and understand
what it was that I wasinterested in, want, wanted to
(02:14):
understand what art spoke forme. And what what I gravitated
towards, naturally as a sort ofintuition, I guess, visceral
based thing. And I started to, Idon't know, experiment, I
started to write raps with, withfriends in the school yard. And
it was very fun, it was veryuseful. It felt meaningful. But
(02:36):
I did notice that I believe Iwas injecting my own sort of
insecurities into my art form,especially as it surrounded my
peers. And I guess what I saw atthe time as sort of like, a
shield of pretense sort ofcontinued. And I realized that
what I needed in terms of beingable to express myself freely
(02:59):
and I guess, to sort of liftedthe burden of, of whatever it
was that I was going through, Ineeded some form of honesty,
some form of radical honesty,and I might not have had the
words in the canon to verbalizethat at the time. But I think me
falling in love with hip hopmusic and hip hop poetry, really
(03:19):
spoke volumes for saying thatthat's what I needed. And I got
into hip hop artists like theroots. I got into hip hop
artists like Kid Curry, whonotoriously spoke openly about
depression and anxiety, andperhaps feeling a little like a
social pariah amongst theirpeers, especially in a landscape
(03:42):
that Cody, especially in alandscape that didn't really
allow him to do that. I think alot of his peers weren't really,
I guess, engaging in that levelof vulnerability that he was. So
that sort of stood out as atestament for me and, and sort
of allowed me to see that, oh,you can, it can be cool to be
(04:03):
honest and open and vulnerable.And not only can it be cool, but
it can also have a radicalimpact on your on your own
mental health and on your ownartistry, you know.
Yeah, absolutely. It's reallyinteresting, how we can change
meanings. So takingvulnerability, as an example.
(04:25):
You know, when actually it'srelationship is is so connected
to courage. But there areproblems around identity,
particularly, I think, with themodel of masculinity, where
courage is always around braveryand not expressing emotions,
because that would be a sign ofweakness, for example. So what
(04:48):
kinds of identity tensions Doyou think you were struggling
with when you were growing up?
Um, what kind of identity typetension? That's a big
existential question. I think,yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of
tensions around sort of notbeing caught not feeling
(05:11):
comfortable in my own skin. Ithink I was naturally an
introvert in perhaps a worldthat tells you, you know,
introversion is weird, or, youknow, it's like, it's not the
normal thing to do. I think Ialso had a slightly different, I
(05:32):
guess, passions, some slightlydifferent passions than the
people around me. I think a lotof my passions became hyper
specific. So when I foundsomething that I loved, like hip
hop music, I focus really intoit. And sometimes that can make
it hard to to sort of stepoutside of that and relate on a
(05:53):
social level. I think also, mynatural inclination was to sort
of isolate myself and I guess bebe more creative on my own, as
opposed to engaging in sort of,like typical social settings. So
I think that there on thesurface definitely created some
sort of, I don't know, socialtension, or sort of some sort of
(06:17):
otherness. And then, of course,you know, like, growing up as a
black mixed race person in, inthe UK, I was wrestling with,
with racialization, and overing.And, and all that sort of mixed
in a pot together. Where Hip Hopreally did allow me to find
(06:37):
solace in that hip hop reallygave me a language to sort of
understand my own state ofexistence. So yeah, yeah, I
think I think that thattransitional point, as a
teenager into early adulthood,was really impactful for me as I
started to discover the art anddelve into it in more depth.
(06:59):
And was that the shift fromwhere you talk about feeling
like an outcast?
Yeah, I mean, you know, what Ithink perhaps happened is that
it took a lot of the tension ofhaving an art form that I could
relate to took a lot of thetension of that which not only
(07:22):
meant that I could sort ofhadn't, like I said, have a have
a language and tounderstand what was going on
around me politically, socially.And what I felt politically and
socially, even, even on asurface level, even though it
was the, the sowing of thoseseeds, perhaps not in depth, but
(07:43):
not only did Hip Hop do that forme, but it also allowed me to
understand that it wasn't. So itwasn't so peculiar, that I was
interested in the things that Iwas interested in that I was
that I felt the way that I felt.And perhaps there was reasons,
societal reasons to why I feltlike that. So and I think I
(08:03):
think what it what it made me dois feel less so like an outcast
in the end, and maybe made mefeel like I had a sense of
community that perhaps wasn'tbound by by geography, and the
social geography, but perhapswas bound by something a little
more metaphysical. And somethingthat could sort of like trans
(08:23):
transcend borders, as I startedto engage with all across the
globe, across Europe, across theinternet. And yeah, it made me
feel less alone. So in turn, itallowed me to function better
with my, my peers, it allowed meto function better in, in, in
school, which is why often Iadvocate for poetry as a form of
(08:45):
thing as a form of engagementthat can sort of, you know, help
towards a flourishing emotionalintelligence on a flourishing I
guess, emotional understandingof oneself and, and once society
and social landscape justbecause I think it gives us a
(09:06):
second to understand to, Iguess, value ourselves and our
and our thoughts as individualsin a way that society doesn't
really give us a chance to, youknow, everything is so fast in
this sort of capitalist A isthat we never really get a
second to process emotions. Sowhen poetry allows for that
space, I think a lot of sort ofmetamorphosis can begin.
(09:30):
Yeah, because I've seen thatyou've also described yourself
as an advocate of patience andsifting through the noise. With
that relate to the kind ofmessage you're getting across.
Yeah, I think I think that'sthat's, that's very much what
what I intended to touch on isthis idea that capitalism just
(09:53):
doesn't really allow for thatour, our state of existence in
this world that we're in rightnow, just doesn't really allow
allow for us to processemotions, it doesn't really
allow for us to maybe even sitwith sit with our, our traumas
or you know, it's like thingsthat I have grown to call
everyday traumas. And the reasonI call them everyday traumas is
(10:14):
because society forces us tosort of skip past them so, so
quickly and so. So hurryhurriedly. So I think art allows
for a space for us to recognizethat and perhaps start to think
about, well, what impact didsocieties, societies voice have a
(10:38):
sort of what what impact didsociety's voice have on my
psyche? On my emotional wellbeing? And how is that impacted
my life? And how can I changethat? If I want to change that?
Or how can I just grow tounderstand it? You know?
Yeah, I think what you callunadulterated honesty, is seems
to be really core to, to how youwrite, and you're quite
(11:03):
prepared, it seems to have thatexposure, which is an act of
bravery. Because that's a hardthing to do, isn't it?
Yeah, it's definitely a hardthing to do, I think I'm perhaps
lucky in the sense that the artform that I fell in love with
(11:24):
naturally pushed me to be to beas open as possible naturally
pushed me to be as vulnerable aspossible, because it was about
sharing your unique experienceof the world, you know, and, and
I think what what happens is,when we do I don't know what
what I like to call, I don'tknow, some sort of introspective
(11:46):
excavation, or some sort of deepdive within what we find is our
true, unique experience of theworld and of perception and
reality. Not to say that, Idon't think it doesn't have its
dangers, you know, I think, youknow, sometimes it can be, it
(12:07):
can be way more valid, and waymore sort of wise to, to go into
those deep, vulnerable feelingsin your own time, whilst not
pushing them to create aproduct, whether that's a piece
of poetry for art's sake, orwhether it's for, you know, from
societal pressure to do so. ButI think it's about what feels
(12:28):
right to you and nurturing,nurturing the best way that you
can feel open and vulnerable andhonest with yourself and not
feel pressurized, you know?
Yeah, because when you talkabout that deep dive, that
process, if you like, of selfreflection, sometimes it's
(12:48):
talked about, you know, inmindfulness practice, but that,
that chance you have that deepdive is also a chance, just to
simply be curious. And even thatact of curiosity is healthy, did
you find that? Your curiosity ofwords is immense? So did you
(13:10):
find that you kind of allowedyourself to be in that space? It
was therapeutic in some way?
Yeah, that's such a greatquestion. I mean, I believe my
my curiosity for language is,it's an interesting one. It's
paradoxical, and it's full ofnuance. I grew up in a very
(13:34):
faith based background, I grewup in the church. And I grew up
having to read the Bible in orhaving the Bible biblical
scripture, Scripture read to me.And what that does, in a way is
give somebody who is younger,who perhaps doesn't have a grasp
of certain metaphorical imageryor certain vocabulary, it puts
(13:55):
it puts the vocabulary in theirface, and, and it shows them
that there is an emotionalimpact to the language without
there having to always be alogical, theoretical impact. You
know, I think about like thechurch setting when something is
said that perhaps I didn't havea logical grasp on in terms of
(14:15):
its vocabulary, I still noticedthat there was an emotional
impact of it. And I think thatwas the same for the
congregation. If the pastor wasto read a biblical scripture,
that felt right, that rolled offthe tongue, right. That I think
the the understanding and thedeeper message of what is being
said under the words, reaches onon a on a more sort of
(14:38):
vibrational emotional level,even if the language doesn't
quite reach our level ofunderstanding. And I think that
somewhat allows for deeperunderstandings of language to
take language and think, Well,how can we break this apart and
look at it deeper into deeperbeyond its surface sort of
thing. And I think that thattaught me really early on to to
(15:00):
engage in poetry, you know, it'slike I think it taught me, like
an ease with language where Ididn't have to obsess over. Am I
using the right? literary form?does this word mean this is this
being used in the right context?Because I think often going into
an art form with that kind ofmindset around language can sort
(15:22):
of stifle us and, and put us ina box way too early. And I am
also very, very dyslexic. So Ithink naturally, my tendency is
to take a word, and, you know,mis misuse it. And I think
sometimes that can be abeautiful thing, because
sometimes it allows you tounderstand something that
(15:43):
perhaps you wanted to say thatyou didn't, you didn't know, you
know, and it perhaps sometimesallows you to get a way more
playful grasp of language. Soyeah, my relationship to
language has definitely beensomewhat therapeutic. And it's
definitely definitely been anemotional relationship, rather
than a logical relationship.
(16:07):
Yeah, and that seems to describea really important relationship
around freedom, freeing uplanguage. So we talk about
breaking barriers, don't waitsocietal barriers, whether it's,
you know, race, identity, sex,there are far too many barriers
that that each of us can face.But it's interesting when you
(16:29):
start to actually consider thebarriers and confines of
language. And your reflection onthat. Yeah, your reflection on
that is really sending out animportant message.
I mean, I think it's so truewhat you say, because I think, I
don't know systems of power andoppression that exist within,
(16:52):
within our society often rely onlanguage to keep us confined.
You know, when when you look atthe, the words that have come
about from, from capitalism,from, from systems of power in
this society in this world, wesee that the language that has
(17:12):
been that has been sort of thatwe've been conditioned to engage
in or believe over time, is verymuch sort of like the pillars
that hold those systems of powerin place, amongst many other
things, of course, but I thinkyou're right, in pointing out
the language is definitely acore element and sort of player
(17:33):
in that sort of, in that powerstruggle, you know, so and I
think, often you see that whenwhen we start to have
discussions as as, as acommunity about breaking down,
or you're speaking againstcertain systems of oppression, I
think often people have an issuewith language. And that always
seems to be a cause forcontention. So it's definitely
(17:54):
something that we need to thinkabout. And think, maybe think
about ways that we can, that wecan get rid of that we can drop
our attachment to language,because I think sometimes we
have unhealthy attachment towords that perhaps can just, you
know, stifle us further.
(18:16):
Yeah, I think that's reallysignificant. Because you can
easily see language as ahierarchy as well. There can be
academic elitism, for example,you know, that can inhibit other
people. Hence, you know, howinteresting it is that in many
ways, you're kind ofrevolutionising the hip hop
(18:36):
space in terms of poetry?Because, of course, it's so easy
for people to leap to thestereotypes of gangsta rap and
violence. Yeah. But actually,you might argue that it always
was a space for poetry andtherapy. Yeah, so,
so, so beautiful that you saythat, because I think you're
right, this is usually theracist sort of narrative that
(18:58):
that, that gives birth to itselffrom the society that you know,
like hip hop, or let's say, thisart form that comes from black
people, is something that isviolent, or uncivilized, or, you
know, something that is overlyconcerned with, with materialism
and material wealth, and and Ithink the issue is that there is
(19:21):
a version of the art form thatgets played out, and that gets
sort of like, pushed to thecenter. And I believe that's
very much because we live in acapitalist society that also
speaks to these themes ofmaterial wealth that speaks to
these themes of you know, thatspeaks to these themes of, I
(19:42):
guess, oppressive systems ofpower. But when you, you're
right, when you look way deeperinto the culture, and it doesn't
even take much digging torealize, you see that the very
core foundations of hip hop wereto de-escalate systems of white
supremacy de-escalate systems ofre Racism, de-escalate and not
(20:02):
not only de-escalate, but combatthese systems of power, right at
the core on a community level,they're very radical and the
very emotional, the birth of hiphop came from this idea of the
safe space the house party waswas very much a setting where
hip hop culture was born fromthe end, you would have people
putting putting cardboard ontothe floor of people dancing as a
(20:24):
means to get out there, there asa means to express themselves.
But and what that did in turnwas not only create a safe space
for emotional flourishing forexpression, but it also meant
that in a society where, wherethere's lots of poverty, where
there's lots of corruption,where there's the pressure of a
racist, sort of like governmentand society coming down in on
(20:47):
the community, it meant thatthis is a place where we can get
our anger, you know, this is aplace that where we can, where
we can speak about our justifiedanger against society. This is a
this is a place where we have avoice where we have a platform.
So that's really at the core ofhip hop. And I believe that's
why it is so radicallyvulnerable and honest, when you
(21:08):
look at the core of the culturein the office, you know.
Yeah, absolutely. And thatvulnerability, of course, is is
often expressions of realcourage to do that. I don't know
if you have necessarily seen thedocumentary series of the hip
hop series that looks at thesongs that shook America. And
(21:31):
it's really, it's reallypowerful. I think you
might see that on a BBC iPlayercatch up? Yeah, I think it would
be of interest to because itidentifies six songs. And it's
from the point of view that itis shifting from stereotypes of
hardcore gangster rap, and andit's almost like violence for
(21:53):
violence sake. And it's muchmore in the territory of the
purpose of what all of the hiphop artists were doing. And they
were changing barriers. So evenif you went into the 90s, then,
in terms of mainstream awarenessrun, Run DMC and Aerosmith
Walk this Way, would have been areal kind of mainstream hit for
(22:15):
a lot of people that wouldn'thave really been engaging with
hip hop. And of course, whatthey did was really powerful
because they were bringing blackand white audiences together,
which is crazy, that we stillhave to even reference that
because, you know, that's whatDean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.
Were doing. And Frank Sinatra,you know, but even now, we're
(22:36):
relying on music and in theseexamples, hip hop culture to do
that.
Yeah, no, I will definitelycheck that out. Yeah, yeah, that
sounds really interesting. Yeah,I'll definitely give that a
watch.
Yeah, because I think it's justa reminder that artists don't
(22:58):
necessarily have the luxury ofcreating there art, it's very
much about in being in an arenaof struggle. Yeah, it's hard for
any artists, you know, it's hardfor any artist who signs or in a
record deal. So of course, it'scoming from barriers of
discrimination anyway, I justthink it really highlights that
(23:19):
our is so often an arena ofstruggle.
Yeah. And I think just to sortof like reiterate, to go back to
that point, I also do not have aproblem with with, let's say,
quote, unquote, gangsta rap orquote, unquote, like any, any
rap that plays to thisstereotype that we spoke about,
(23:42):
because I believe that it'strue, cool, you can sort of see,
the story has been told. And so,you know, it's like, when people
are speaking from the realm ofexperience, I think that there's
nothing more sort of like,valuable than that. And I think,
I think that's how we've grownto understand like many
(24:03):
different experiences of manydifferent peoples, you know, is
by engaging with they are, Ithink what my issue is, is when
you have outer groups, peoplewho are outside of the
community, let's namely, like inhistorical sensors, in terms of
hip hop, sort of like whiterecord, label owners come in and
say, Well, this is themarketable idea of what we need
(24:26):
to represent of the culture.This is the thing that we are
going to congratulate more thananything else. And this is the
thing that we're going to give aplatform to rather than anything
else, I think that that thenbecomes an issue because it
becomes more who is in controlof the narrative here. And then
what sort of sort of racism isallowed to be injected into the
projection of the culture. Andas how society perceives
(24:50):
it, you know, so yeah, I thinkit's all about who is in control
of the narrative. And that'swhen it gets a little shady.
When you look at thingshistorically, you start to see
the record companies withswooped in, you know, offer
somebody like $100,000, orsomething of that nature, and
then create a golden standard ofwhat should be created and what
should be projected in order togain some sort of financial
(25:13):
success. Which of which, ofcourse, is manipulation and a
form of cultural violence, youknow?
Yeah, so branding is part ofyour control problem, isn't it
that product power of marketing.And I think that's probably an
even heavier burden on artists,because even with that awareness
(25:35):
in mind, it's another set ofbarriers, isn't it? It's
another, it's another David andGoliath battle. Have you managed
the sense of branding aroundyourself or your own work?
That's interesting is not reallysomething that I, I give too
much thought to. Especially ifwe go back to this idea of
(25:59):
honesty and vulnerability, Iguess that becomes your guiding
principle in a way. And not onlyhonestly, just in sort of, like
literary expression, but honestyin sort of what feels right,
musically, what feels right, interms of the choices you make
within the community, what youknow what's like what feels
(26:20):
right. And that's also was a,that's also a constant battle,
because you're kind of in thissystem that we live in, we're
constantly having to weigh upwhat feels right, versus what is
going to allow us to earn somesort of financial compensation
for the work that we do, youknow, and sometimes those two
things don't always fittogether. It's beautiful when
they do when they're harmonious,and you can do what feels right,
(26:42):
and it earns you money. But manytimes, that's not the case. So
it's a constant. It's a constantbattle to, like it's a constant
moralistic and ethical battle ina way. And sometimes you just
have to let your your gut guideyou and sort of your intuition
guide you there, you know.
Yeah, absolutely. I wanted tosee if you knew the work of a
(27:06):
research professor Brene Brown,because she became like a viral
hit on TED Talks, you may havecome across her work. If not, I
I think it will interestyou. Yeah, because she's done a
massive study, where she talksabout the courage to be
vulnerable and you talk aboutthe power of vulnerable
(27:27):
expression. And I think there'slots and lots of synergies
there. And she describesvulnerability as our "most
accurate measurement of courage."And I wondered what your
thoughts were on that?
Yeah, that's so interesting.Yeah, I mean, to an extent I
(27:53):
agree with them. Like, I thinkthat vulnerability is definitely
a, I guess, a more sort ofobjective way of measuring
courage, because you can sort ofsay, well, this person put
themselves in the sort ofposition to be exposed, whether
that's exposing an insecurity,whether that's sort of, you
(28:17):
know, exposing themselves bysharing an art form that is that
is difficult or engaging with anart form that is difficult. But
I think, yeah, what that does isit does create a sense of
community and it does reallysort of like unite people. And I
think that's, that's why I fellin love with the art form that I
did is because in let's say, KidCurry being open about his
depression, about feelingoutcast, it created a point of
(28:40):
relation, I didn't feel so alonein those in those situations,
but it took his courage to dothat. Then there's, there's a
dichotomy sort of inside of methat says, whilst vulnerability
can be a form of courage, it canalso be very performative. And
there's, there's, we see thishistorically, and we see this in
(29:00):
our current landscape thatcapitalism have has a sneaky way
of injecting itself into anysort of radical, I guess,
radical activity. And I thinkcapitalism has a way of doing
that with vulnerability where itbecomes about how honest and how
open can you be in order tomarket yourself as such, you
(29:22):
know, and it's like, you havebrands sort of latching on to
the idea of vulnerability inorder for them to sell a
product. And I think we see thiswith with concepts of like self
care, for example, you know,self care being somewhat
something radical in as we said,in a constant rush of things, it
could be so meaningful to takethat moment of self care if if
(29:43):
what that moment means is givingtime for your emotional
flourishing for giving time forwhatever it is usually need.
However, what we see is we seesort of brands being like, take
time to eat your favorite brandof ice cream or you know, take
some time to go shopping at theGucci store or somewhere, so
capitalism has a sneaky way ofusurping these radical ideas.
(30:06):
And I also am aware thatthere's, there's a paradox in
vulnerability, being honestand vulnerable, sometimes it can
be unwise, and it can beunhealthy, it can be hurtful,
you know, if we push people tobe vulnerable at the wrong time,
we can perhaps disturb traumasthat weren't ready to be
disturbed, that weren't ready tosort of be explored, or perhaps
(30:28):
in a landscape or a space thatwasn't safe for those things to
be exposed. So I think it isvery much down to the
individual's volition and sortof using the guiding principle
for that. And, and also, I thinksometimes, people who have been
the most courageous, perhapsdon't have the luxury of being
the most vulnerable sometimes,you know, people who have been
(30:50):
through traumatic events whohave survived unimaginable
things, you know, I think about,I think about some of my family
heritage, and some of my familythat escaped Nazi Germany and
sort of survived the Holocaust.And I think, like that was
already such a mountainous thingto survive, that perhaps being
(31:16):
vulnerable about it and speakingopenly about it would be would
be tremendously difficult to tobring up all that trauma
straightaway. And so I thinkit's, I think, sometimes we've
gone we have exercised thatcourage to the, to the maximum,
and we need, then a safe spaceat some point to talk about it.
(31:37):
But sometimes vulnerability inin the moment isn't always the
isn't always the best option,you know.
Yeah. And because also, it'sremoving a relationship that can
arrive with shame, you know, ifyou feel vulnerable, and you
associate that to being weak,and then you feel ashamed, which
(31:59):
none of none of which isjustified. But unfortunately,
it's so often the connectionsthat are made, it's indeed being
very careful, whether it's yourown self reflection, or in a
therapy type relationship, thatas you approach vulnerability,
you're not inviting in shame.The mind is too good at
(32:20):
automatic negative thinking, andprejudiced, habitual thinking.
And I think what your poetry isdoing is literally smashing
those barriers of language. Aswe mentioned earlier, you're
you're inviting people to thinkagain, about their own thoughts.
(32:41):
Thank you so much. Yeah, just anadditional thought on that, I
think. Sometimes it's atremendous privilege to to be
vulnerable in an artistic sense,you know, sometimes, I believe
it's, it's, it's privileged,that also allows for that, you
know, and, and when I say that,I mean, to be vulnerable, in
(33:02):
this artistic sense, sometimesrequires space for reflection,
and space for philosophy. And,and if you're in a place in
society, where you areconstantly having to work, where
you're constantly having toexercise all your emotional,
physical energy, just to merelysurvive, then this idea of
(33:24):
artistic vulnerability becomesvery much a sort of privilege.
And and something that noteverybody can can exercise the
time for, you know?
Oh, absolutely. I think that isreally, really significant. And
it's one of the factors that'sproblematic in terms of how the
art suffers from elitism.Because, yeah, there's a lot of
(33:47):
privilege in order to be able tobe an artist, unless, of course,
you are in that, that space ofsuch deep exposure, that risk is
what you know, anyway, it's kindof one extreme or the other. Mm
hmm. No, I think I think itreally does remind you that art
(34:15):
is very much a radical act,depending particularly on the
circumstances of the artist.Yeah. Do you feel that, do you
feel radical in yourown right from that point of
view?
Oh, interesting. Um, I mean, Iwould, it would be so nice to
say yes, it would be so nice andlike, it would align with what I
(34:40):
believe outside of outside likeif I was to separate myself,
from me engaging in my art, tosay that the art form was
radical would be in line with mybelief system. But if I was to
be 100% honest, I thinksometimes selfish intention is
the reason why I would createThe art form that I create, and
(35:01):
then my hope is somehow somehowmiraculously, in me being honest
through some form of selfish,selfish intention. And that
selfish intention beingsometimes to literally see
myself represented on the page,or to archive my very existence
in a world that I feelconstantly fearful about, or in
(35:22):
a world that I feel constantly.like I have no grasp or control
over in a world where I feel mymortality. These are somewhat
all selfish reasons. But what myhope is that in churning that
out, we all exist under thisthing called the human
condition. And the hope is thatpeople will do relate, and the
(35:43):
hope is that it can go on tohave some sort of transformative
effect or some sort of communitycentric effect. But I would like
to think it's radical. To betotally honest, I think it is
more self induced, and I thinkit is more sort of like an
introspective, intimaterelationship, you know?
(36:08):
Yeah, of course, we're talkingtoday in the horrifying context
of of a war of the war onUkraine. And yeah, the
existential threats, that war,the vulnerability that the world
is facing, you know, that gripof anxiety, and the horror of
(36:32):
the kind of paralysis we allhave around it as well, it's,
you know, something so such anatrocity can't just be stopped.
I wondered, even if you hadthoughts on that kind of global
scale around trauma, when wementioned trauma earlier, you
know, the importance of beingable to express trauma, albeit
(36:54):
carefully so that there's nofurther damage. Can you even
begin to imagine how there'sgoing to be expressions of
trauma out of Ukraine alone, youknow, let alone Yemen, let alone
Afghanistan, let alone Syria,for example. And I just wondered
(37:16):
what your thoughts were, whenyou look at all of these men who
are being told to stay andfight, what your own anxieties
are around around their trauma.
Uh, you know, is it's horrifyingand, and it's, it's an exact
representation of where we arein the world right now. And I
(37:38):
honestly and wholeheartedly donot have the level of wisdom and
understanding to, to when toengage, hopefully, in that in
that conversation, because Ithink I can only ever speak from
a level of privilege I have notengaged in any, I've not been
(38:00):
affected by immediately by anyform of war. I mean,
historically, and in my family,I have been affected by forms of
war and forms of racialoppression. But I can, I can
definitely not speak on on sortof that, that level of trauma,
because I think, I think oftenin we maneuver through society,
(38:22):
and we see, you know, we'reseeing a constant influx of, of
pain and murder and death. Andthough it is horrifying, I think
what it does, by not having thisproximity towards it, and not
having a true understanding ofit, and also not having, as I
said, back to this capitalisttendency to not give us time to
actually process these things.What it truly does is create a
(38:45):
sense of numb. And I thinksometimes, in my case, that
numbing is coming from aproximity, a distant proximity
to to war and death and which is,which is a sense of privilege.
So I truly cannot speak on it,you know? All that all I can say
is I know that it's horrifyingwhat is happening in in Ukraine.
(39:09):
It's also horrifying, the murderthat has been happening in
Palestine, the murder thathappens in Syria. And I think,
sadly, what what happens is wewe often as a western society,
and as a product of whitenessand racism in society, can so
(39:31):
easily distance ourselves fromthe murder that happens in
Syria, the murder that happensin Palestine, Afghanistan, but
we all of a sudden feelsomething so visceral about
what's happening in Ukraine aswe should, as we should feel,
what is happening, but I thinkit definitely makes a note of
(39:52):
our level of privilege and how,what speaks to us, you know, and
yeah, I personally I do notbelieve in any form of war, I do
not believe in any form ofmilitary, I do not believe in. I
think the end result is alwaysmurder and death. And I think
(40:13):
the point is to always thinkabout well, how can we? How can
we support communities andindividuals and oppressed
peoples who were always impactedthe worst by these situations?
And yeah, I am too, I'm fartoo, sort of my my privilege is
far too comfy for me to trulytalk on the trauma that those
(40:34):
people are experiencing in realtime, you know.
What you do, however, do in yourwork is talk very clearly about
compassion. But in terms ofcompassionate action, you know,
it's not just a point of view, Ithink it's interesting, where
you describe yourself, I'llquote, you as a "catalytic
(40:56):
converter, transforming externalworld toxins into poems of hope."
And I thought that was reallypowerful, because it's kind of
stating your purpose, you know,your poetic purposes,
compassionate, compassionateaction. How would you expand on
that?
(41:17):
Yeah, no, thank you so much forcalling that. So that's, that's
a line from from the bookSafe and Metamorphosis and yeah,
how would I expand on that Ithink it very much is the access
to everything, all the access, toeverything that we've been
speaking about, you know, thisidea that the world gives us
something, and if you have timeto process it, if you have the
(41:39):
mental space, and, and, youknow, the opportunity to process
it, what we can do is createsomething beautiful out of that
not only something beautifulthat other people can really
relate to, but something thatallows us to understand our
state of existence, and ourstate of struggle. So I'm very
much for thinking about how totake the scenic route with
(42:01):
language, thinking about how tobeautify what we have our pain
and, and adorn it in a way thatthat we can experience and have
joy out of it. You know,there's, there's the biblical
scripture, whatever, what,whatever the devil has made, for
bad God will make for good, youknow, and to take that outside
(42:22):
of it's sort of like biblicalcontext or the, you know, it's
like, it's spiritualconnotations. But to just put it
into the realm of art, as itrelates to life, whatever pain
and whatever trauma has been,has been forced onto us. I
believe art gives us anopportunity to not only find
therapy in it, but also find joyin it, you know, at some point.
(42:47):
Yeah, yeah. And it's, it'sremaining mindful of the power
of optimism and hope and joy, tonot only be defeated, you know,
by all the stresses and horrorsof life, Otis, what, what would
you say, explains why a poem canspeak, but we may not talk to
(43:11):
each other?
Wow, that's such an interestingquestion. Huh? That's, that's
that, that really speaks to me.I think it's because I think
there's many reasons but I thinkone of the reasons is because
vulnerability being core to thisquestion, I think, we struggle
(43:32):
to, we struggle to faceourselves and we see ourselves
in other people. And it's, it'salmost, it's almost sometimes
too much of a high volume ofourselves to experience, you
know, to look somebody in theface and experience their
humaneness. And do that withcompassion, with empathy, with
understanding, is sometimes fartoo overstimulating for our for
(43:54):
ourselves to sort of bearespecially when we're dealing
with our own insecurities,especially when we're dealing
with our own societal, I don'tknow, struggles and the systems
of oppression and trying tonavigate those, sometimes it's
so hard to see those and relateto those and other people, which
is sad, and it's a bit of acurse of the human existence.
But then I do believe that theart is a form of is a bridge in
(44:17):
that sense. And it allows us toput ourselves in the piece of
art in a way that maybe is alittle more digestible, or maybe
speaks to something that's alittle more emotionally
universal, where we can see ourour fellow person in something
that we can understand, youknow, in something that we can
process in our own time. Somehowsomething, something of what
(44:40):
Jericho Brown, the incrediblepoet said comes to mind, and he
speaks about poetry. I'mparaphrasing, of course, but he
speaks about poetry having arelationship to beauty, and the
like the aesthetic of beauty,and you know how he would relate
that to our art. Our need for trees you know, it's a
(45:02):
relationship of beauty, we don'tquite know why we need trees or
why we need poetry. But if wedidn't have them, we would
definitely notice it andsomething would be a lot more
bleak. So I find that I findwhat he said, they're so
beautiful. And it allows me tosort of resonate with this idea
(45:23):
that perhaps something doesn'talways have to be analyzed, or,
you know, sort of picked apartobjectively and logically, but
sometimes things can just speakto us emotionally, you know,
thinking about back to what wespoke about with the, the level
of language that we that weresonate to the emotional side
of language, the the emotionalface to language, and thinking
(45:45):
about what transformative impactthat can have on us, as opposed
to was always living in ourhead, you know, always, it
always coming from our head,what happens if we were to allow
it to come from something alittle lower down, you know?
Yeah. I'm interested in yourexperience of becoming a poet
(46:09):
laureate. And your experience ofmanaging that label, if you
like, it kind of makes youalmost like an official
spokesperson, or, or does itimpose anything that you didn't
expect? I just wondered whatkind of judgments you may have
dealt with?
Yeah, sure. I mean, when I, whenI was asked to do the role in
(46:33):
2018, it was it was a privilege.And it was also sort of like a
big, anxiety inducing idea aswell, because I was aware that
there was a responsibilitybehind it. And I was aware that
I was going to be askedquestions that I perhaps
sometimes wouldn't be prepared,wouldn't have been prepared to
(46:53):
answer, you know. And I thinkwith a role that has been
traditionally exercised underideas of elitism ideas of white
supremacy, it was always goingto be something radical to, for
me to be the poet laureate,especially with no literary
training, traditionally, noliterary training, given the
(47:17):
fact that I didn't come from,let's say, a classical or
traditional poetry back ground,my, my artistic influences from
the realm of music is from therealm of jazz, from the realm of
hip hop, from the realm ofspoken word and performance
poetry, which often gets snuffedby the elitist idea, you know,
(47:38):
when trying to exist in spacesof academia or spaces of more
traditional poetry. So I startedto learn that very quick, I
started to realize that that wasthe case. However, on the flip
side, it was very easy to ignorethat in the face of all the
beauty that the role broughtabout, you know, I got the
opportunity to speak to groupsof young people that I would
(47:59):
have never had the opportunityto talk about this beautiful art
form that I learned through hiphop, this art form of
expression, this art form of rappoetry. And I think it was
meaningful to talk to peopleabout that and sort of let them
know what sort of transformativeeffect it had on me and sort of
see if there is grounds andspace for it to have that
(48:20):
transformative effect on them.You know, I've got to do things
like deliver my first publiclecture on hip hop philosophy
and poetry and, and I got todeliver my deliver seminars as
part of the the actualliterature curriculum at
Sheffield University and thingsof that nature. So yeah, the
(48:43):
beauty far outweighed thechallenges. But yeah, it was
always interesting for me to beasked sort of like, who are your
favorite poets and them alwayssort of expecting me to, I don't
know, say William Wordsworth forI remember, when I first when I
first became poet laureate,there was a there was some sort
(49:03):
of like sub article on theonline version, I think it was
in The Star of how this mentoris not a real poet, William
Wordsworth. And I always foundthat quite amusing. Especially
when in the face of yeah, it'dbe like one of my favorite poets
are Black Thoughtoot of The Roots andsort of seeing people, you know,
(49:24):
shake under, under the idea thatthis elitist idea couldn't
continue on, but also shakeunder the idea that perhaps they
weren't the expert, perhaps theyhad something to learn perhaps
there was a level of curiositythere too, which is always
beautiful. It's always beautifulto shake people's ideas about
(49:45):
art and shake people'spreconceived ideas about the all
that matters, in our culture andin in our personal lives, you
know, so it was an interestingjourney.
Yeah, absolutely. And whenyou're facing those challenges,
you know, because you have a newlabel or a new definition or
identity, you know what you do.When you feel fearful? How do
(50:11):
you manage it?
Yes. No, that's, that's a greatquestion. I think, I think to be
honest, when it comes to sharingmy art, I tend not to feel
fearful. And that can sound sortof egotistical, or it can even
sound as though it's coming froma place of deep courage. But
(50:32):
sometimes I don't think it is, Ithink sometimes it comes from a
place of naivety, you know, Iwas definitely raised in an art
form, that tells you that yourideas matter that your ideas
that as, as I spoke aboutbefore, that you have a unique
story to, to sort of share. Andso once you grasp the feeling of
(50:55):
that, even though the ID can beshaken by by, you know, as odd
as we compare ourselves to otherpeople, and our self esteem can
often be on the chopping block.So you know what, but when
that's not the case, and whenyou do have this form of
unbridled self assurance in yourstory, as I think all of us
should do. Fear isn't a factorthat that seeps into sharing our
(51:20):
you know, so I have aninteresting relationship with
fear because I experienced feara lot. In my day to day life, I
experienced fear a lot. When itcomes to thinking about
mortality when it comes tothinking about choices when it
comes to thinking about societalexpectations, should I say, or
(51:41):
family or, you know, any of theabove romance or any of the
above, I experienced so muchfear. And it's so beautiful to
me that art is this safe space,where actually fear is something
that that can't see its way inand sort of art and expression
is this imperishable, unbridled,unbridled state of sort of, sort
(52:04):
of existence and sharing, youknow?
Yeah. From that point of view,is the performance space, the
live performance space naturalto you? Or is that an act of
courage?
I would love to say it's an actof courage, but it is 100%
natural to me, I feel a littlemore closer to the person that I
(52:29):
am, when I'm performing onstage, I feel like I can truly
be myself. That's not to saythat there's not fabrication and
that's not to say that there'snot performance, given the exist
on the stage like onstage. Butit just feels aligned with what
I have always conditioned myselfto believe is my purpose. You
know, so I think two thingsalign my my childhood teenage
(52:53):
self is saying, yes, you will,right. And, on the on the flip
side, I'm also getting somehealthy, some healthy dopamine
and some healthy, sort of seeingmy ideas represented in the
world and seeing them you know,you create in this sort of
introvert, intimate space thatis often cut off from the rest
(53:15):
of the world, or just your lifeas an artist, creating and
ongoing with your creativeendeavors, is sometimes
isolating. So to see your ideascome to life, as they pertain to
people and how people feel andpeople's emotions and actual,
tangible, non ineffable physicalcommunity is so, so joyous, and
(53:38):
it's so so meaningful. Sowhenever I get chances to
perform, it just feels right andfear doesn't get chance to sort
of niggle its way in.
Yeah, it's really interesting.It's a really interesting way of
being able to control fear isn'ttaking over. It does seem that
(54:00):
there's a role for encouragingcuriosity and courage in ways
that aren't asking too much, butto really inviting some sense of
freedom and some sense ofownership instead of what can
feel like capitalisticoppression a dumbing down or a
(54:21):
numbing, like you said earlier,you know, that starts to deprive
people from their own acts ofcuriosity and courage. Would you
say there's a case to almostencourage that, to encourage
engaging in being curious andbeing courageous in ways that
which may be through art?
(54:45):
Yeah, I think, you know, I feellike that that's the, that's the
resonance of which our lifevibrates best, you know, when we
can feel that our courage issort of pushing us in to our,
our sense of purpose, or pushingus into a space where we not
only feel comfortable, but gobeyond feeling comfortable, and
(55:07):
we're able to flourish. And whatdoes that mean? That means that
we're able to emotionally acceptourselves, perhaps even able to
physically accept ourselves,despite societal, society's
voice always having something tosay about that. I think when we
can feel like that, we're in ourtrue, we're in our true skin,
(55:30):
and we're in our true sort ofpurpose for life, if you will.
And I'm a firm believer ofwhatever realm of vehicle that
that takes that that's okay. Youknow, I believe artists can
exist in any form and walk oflife. You know, an artist
doesn't always have to besomebody who creates the product
of art. But an artist can besomebody who injects their
(55:51):
artistry into their social work,who injects that artistry into
their therapy, who injects thatartistry into the way that they
engage with the community. Ithink there's so many things in
this, there's so many thingsthat we lack in the society. So
if you have found a way tocreate a solution for for the
(56:12):
huge, sort of boundless lackthat that this world gives us, I
think that's an art in and ofitself. And I think that's in
line with a humanistic andsoulful purpose.
Yeah, yeah. And purpose is soimportant. As you know, having a
clear purpose is so important.Yeah. Unbelievably, it's, the
(56:38):
the hour flies by too fast. Butthere is a question I'd like
to ask, it's amazing how fast itgoes, you'll have to be a guest
in every season. But um,something I would be interested
in, in closing on is in responseto the series, the question
(57:01):
that's posed "Can art save us?" I'mreally interested in your
description of art, and I'llquote you. "Pain gave birth to
art. Although they never did seeeye to eye, art cared only for
liberation from its predecessor."Yeah, I love that. And I just
(57:22):
wondered if you wanted to, youknow, for the listeners to talk
about, you know, what was inyour mind and what it is you're
saying?
Yeah, no, thank you so much forsharing that. So then then
again, that's another quotefrom, from the book Safe
Metamorphosis. And, you know, itwas speaking to this idea that
the artist always has to delveinto a cauldron or, or a puddle
(57:49):
or a well of pain in order tocreate something. And I thought
about that idea. And I thoughtabout how meaningful it is to
see our pain represented in away that I said, is sort of
beautified, but alsounderstandable, and that we can
relate to create a sense ofcommunity. But then I think
(58:10):
about the sort of negativeconnotations that that might
have, does that mean artistshave to exist under a constant
state of proximity to pain? AndI thought about that, well, no,
actually, it doesn't. Becauseas the line says, art really
doesn't care too much about yourpain, it really only cares about
the transformation. It reallyonly cares about the
(58:31):
metamorphosis that can come fromit. And that's where art can
sort of save the world andchange the world. I don't
believe art for art's sake, cansave the world and change the
world. But I believe art'sability to have sort of
liberation from the pain that wego through, can really spark the
(58:52):
change in society that we need,you know, you know, I think
about any form of socialmovement that has existed, I
always say I dare you to findthe piece of art that wasn't
playing in the background thatwasn't fulfilling people with
the soul that they needed tokeep on going. And so in that
sense, yes, art, art has, has agreat need to sort of see itself
(59:16):
free from pain. And I think whatwe can do is we can learn from
that and inject that into oursocieties, into our communities,
and just into our ownpersonalized lives.
Yeah, and then that's such abeautiful and important
sentiment and statement really,again, when we're in a war
(59:37):
context, unbelievably, you knowthat the issue of pain. I
can't thank you enough for yourtime and your generosity of your
time today. We'll make sure thatlisteners know where to find you
in the text to the podcastseries. Just to close are there
(59:59):
any any final words you'd liketo share in terms of whoever is
going to be listening? Whetherit's words of hope, or just a
sentiment that you'd like peopleto take away from listening to
this podcast today?
(01:00:20):
I guess something that resonateswith me is, is this idea that
that we shouldn't sortof be confined by by rules and,
and sort of whatever it is thatyou're trying to engage in, in
whatever art form that you seeyourself being freed by or freed
inside of participating in,don't let yourself be stifled by
(01:00:43):
the rules of that art form, orthe traditions of that art form.
Whether that's literary modes,whether that's conventions, and
again, I think, understandingthat we have such a deep sense
of purpose within within us,that doesn't always have to be
(01:01:03):
sort of represented logically,but sometimes can have soulful
and emotional meaning and power.And sometimes that's completely
enough, you know, so theeverybody's story matters that
everybody has something toshare. And that we can share
that our own volition in our owntime, using our own forms of
(01:01:24):
communication and our own formsof art. And that's meaningful
enough. Thank you. Thank you somuch, Otis, and I am very much
looking forward to the next bookof poems and following your
work. Thank you again. Thank youso much.
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