Sonia Sanchez Lays Out the Role of Poetry Today, Talks about Her Relationship to Hip-Hop, and Breaks Down Some of Her Most Vivid Verses

People's Party with Talib Kweli

UPROXX

Music

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2022

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

Poet and civil rights activist Sonia Sanchez joins Talib Kweli and Jasmin Leigh for a deep exploration of her poetry, the importance of spoken word, and her relationship with hip-hop music. But this interview is more than a study on the power of words. Sanchez also dips into colorism, shares how she turned her personal struggles into triumphant pieces of art, and touches on the contentious relationship between art and the media. Whether you’re moved by words or actions, Sanchez is an interview that will deepen your thinking on the power of both in this must-listen interview. It also offers tremendous context for those who want to understand more about the era of conscious hip-hop.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Peace and love party people. This is Talib Kuala Lee to BKMC, the MCEO. You are about to hear an
0:04.8	excerpt of People's Party hosted by me and my lovely and talented co-host Ms. Jasmine Lee. What up
0:09.7	Jasmine? What up Peeps, to hear our entire combo and all of our episodes. We've started from the
0:14.5	game to Lil Kim, to Anthony Anderson, to my sister Tiffany Haddish, subscribe to the Illuminary
0:19.7	channel on Apple Podcasts. Okay, so shout out to Mary Baraka, Rest in Peace, and Rasp
0:25.6	Rocker's son, and Audrey Lloyd, and Maya Angelou and Gwendolyn Brooks, who I just wrote a song based
0:31.6	on when her poems Haki Madaboodi, who's very influential to me, Ishmael Reed, Nika Jivani,
0:36.6	all these people, all these incredible people came out of the Black Arts Movement. Can you tell us
0:40.8	about your involvement in the creation of the Black Arts Movement and its impact on a culture?
0:46.2	As we tried to at some point navigate what was happening in America, what was happening to families,
0:52.7	what was happening to our communities, what was happening in the schools, what was happening
0:57.5	all over, and we were trying to confront it at the same time, trying to raise our children,
1:03.6	and trying also to answer the most important question that we began our discussion on what
1:08.6	is there being to be human during the 1960s. My group of people, Baraka, Haki, Larry Neal, June
1:18.0	Jordan, the poets out of Chicago, all these people who were coming along, we were like,
1:25.2	we're looking at the world, saying simply, we've got to begin to bring our own discussion,
1:31.6	our own logic, our own sense way of looking at the world. And America said,
1:37.6	who do you think you are? Don't you know you are Negroes? Don't you understand what being
1:42.8	a Negro is? Right? You follow orders, we say, you go to the schools, you want to go and you
1:48.6	write the kind of poetry you want to the right, right? And all of a sudden we looked up
1:53.5	and two people, you know, co-trained and Malcolm, you know, we began to listen to and they began to
2:01.2	teach us, and I know I teach English but that ain't quite right, you know? This is the real deal
	...

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