MPR’s Tasha Rosenfeld interviews Minneapolis hip-hop and spoken word artist Desdamona. They discuss First Avenue spoken word event. Desdamona also performs a piece.
Spoken word is performance-oriented poetry that is sometimes backed up with music. Many of the artists compete locally and nationally in poetry slams, where their work is judged by a panel of critics picked from the audience.
SPEAKER 1: The stuff I do, I think that goes over really well. A lot of times it has to do with personal experience, but it also usually deals with some kind of issue. I do a lot of women's issue poems that are really my issues. But they go over well because I think people find a connection there. Anything, any personal experience, it usually affects people in a strong way.
SPEAKER 2: Give us a little sample of something that you've done.
SPEAKER 1: All right, this is "Imagine."
(SINGING) Imagine you were me, and I was you He was she and we were blue One and one was three not two Imagine you were me and I was you We have an infatuation with division, separation by vision, heading for a colossal collision, claiming from different places we were risen when we all came straight from her.
Earth was our birthplace, direct, reflective, her face, Secular souls from different times, same space And we rise back to the past, future following fast Three, two one, two, three Which way do we go so we can finally be free? Three, two, one, two, three I can't see You can't see me
SPEAKER 2: That's demanding of the audience that's listening. Now, do you feel that if that were just on paper, a lot more interpretation would be left up to the reader? But when they are able to hear you deliver that--
SPEAKER 1: I know that my stuff is a lot better performed than it is read off the paper. And I think that's true with a lot of spoken word. Because you can use that like singsong element and it brings a certain mood to the piece that you can't have on the page.
So yeah. And I think it makes it-- in a way, I think it makes it more accessible than just the writing on the page. Because you can bring the people into the mood that you want them to be in and then hear it then after that.
SPEAKER 2: Where does the Twin Cities fit in terms of the spoken word scene?
SPEAKER 1: I think that we have it really good here, actually, because we have-- the city is a musical city. And so adding in theater also. So we add-- when you can add theater and music to your work, it pushes you to evolve it past just reading it off the page.
And I think when I go some other places, some of the poets sound a lot alike. And here I feel like-- it's not quite-- it's not like that here it seems. It seems like everybody really has focused on their own individual energy, and their own voice and really like tapped into that.
SPEAKER 2: Sounds like it's an art form that's still evolving. Where can it go from here?
SPEAKER 1: Who knows?
[LAUGHS]
I think I don't know. I think we still have a little ways to go. I think I've been trying to and have in the past worked with other artists in involving movement and more theatrical side to it.
And I've never really studied theater so for me it's like a new thing. And I think with that element, I think it can go a long ways. Because there's people who are writing plays that are all spoken word. And adding that element of music, and adding the element of movement and who knows, like where it can go from there? And if we can start getting the attention of the mainstream public, that they decide where it goes from there.
Digitization made possible by the State of Minnesota Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, approved by voters in 2008.
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