Poetry, Spoken Word & Every Type of Mic

I can't remember the first time I ever had a run-in with anything lyrical or poetically related (Probably Mother Goose - The Original Gangsta of Poetry). However, I do remember vaguely a particular assignment that was given to my fourth grade class, that involved us creating and piecing together a book of poetry - researched and original.  Now in my fourth grade mind at the time, I had no use for such things (After all, I was only now finding about the "finer things" life had to offer - like the internet, girls, and pictures of naked women).  But what I will never forget, is the excitement  I found in my mother, after she read a few of my originals (Especially one in particular she always said she would submit to "Highlights").

For three years, I never wrote a single word of poetry, and found my worth on the hardwood floor playing basketball (Although my playing time looked like a grade point average). In the seventh grade, I sparked a flickering infatuation with rapping & freestyling in the back of the classroom, and at one time, found myself rapping to an instrumental that was being played at recess (Don't ask.... #victimofblackeducation lol).  I wasn't the Jay-z of my school, but this growing love stayed with me - even up to my very first freestyle battle in the 8th grade (Totally different school....oh...and I TRASHED that guy).  There was NOTHING that I could equate to the feeling that I felt, watching my classmates convulse in orgasmic outburst, running around grabbing their faces, and asking me to repeat certain lines.  I couldn't be Kobe on the court but I definitely held my weight as a lyricist.  That moment ALONE held the potency to make crack's addiction turn up its nose (Explaining why I've been hooked ever since).

However, this only helped in making me feel like I had something that the world would want to hear - something that would make me popular.  Writing only became a "Voice" for me in the 10th grade, after my family and I, moved back to the Washington D.C. area.  It was here, where life began to remove its shield of adolescent bliss, and began to show me the meaning of true reality.  Here is where I began to struggle with feelings of inferiority and a lack of confidence, due to my family's overall situation.  I never knew writing to express, verses, writing to be hot, could be just as self-gratifying.  It took the schooling of my "Ol' Head" Mike aka "Talent" to show me the true meaning of writing with a meaning.

And from then on the seeds were planted.  Even all through my boarding school experience, life for me was at the juncture of a major revolution, in terms of writing for "self-expression".  It was HERE where I made that grueling transition from "rap" to "poetry", although not entirely, but enough to spark my interest in the difference between the two (Although the two for me remain synonymous).

I guess you can say my "poetic bud" came to full flower, attending Oakwood University in Hunstville, Al.  It is here, I was initiated into the tapestry of the "Art & Soul" family, that has played crucial in making me the writer/poet/slammer that I am today.  ___x