For more than 30 years, Hip Hop has served as the soundtrack to our life’s narrative. We all have that one beat, that one rhyme, that one break that just won’t quit. Hip Hop has grown into a global phenomenon birthing many of the most dynamic artists of our time. And by “artists” I am not simply referring to those with a record deal. To truly understand Hip Hop culture is to recognize the multiplicity of artistic production and disciplines that exists within this space.
Hip Hop theater is one such discipline. Building upon the energy of classic theatrical techniques and the ever-present cypher, Hip Hop Theater represents a unique performance style of dance, spoken word, dramaturgy, and rhyme. Yet more than plays to be performed, Hip Hop Theater challenges our very notions of content and form becoming critical to larger understandings of identity, race, and gender politics.
In a new anthology, Say Word: Voices from Hip Hop Theater, author/activist/scholar Daniel Banks compiles 8 of the most compelling pieces of Hip Hop Theater from playwrights who push the boundaries of storytelling. Say Word embodies the Nommo. The creative life force of the Dogon people in Mali, Nommo can be understood as the spiritual bond central to language. As Banks asserts in his introduction, Nommo, the word, is inextricably linked to Hip Hop because of the relationship between listener and speaker. In this relationship, both listener and speaker are active participants. It is a provocative call and response. Hip Hop theater then expands upon this relationship by emphasizing the interactive: the relationship between actor, audience, and the elements.
Banks is careful to structure his anthology in a manner that is accessible for old time lovers of Hip Hop Theater and those who are new friends of the genre. Divided into three sections-Spoken Word Theater, Hip Hop Theater Plays and Solo Performances-Say Word moves from the poetic to the personal. Banks is cognizant of the disconnect that occurs when performance pieces are read and not performed however, little meaning is lost as the words of the works within each section speak a certain truth to power.
I, for one, had no trouble falling into the rhythm off Goddess City, a spoken word theater piece by Abiola Abrams and Antoy Grant reminiscent of ntozake’s shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. A choreopoem for three fallen goddesses, Abrams and Grant create a city in which the goddesses of Fever, Truth, and Nerve reclaim sexuality and pain and beauty. The goddesses (re) visit and (re) imagine moments in life that give, as the GODDESS ANTHEM notes, a voice to the voiceless by sharing stories of the soul.
For example, in the poem BEAUTY SHOP, Nerve grapples with decisions regarding the stylings of her hair-an all too familiar reality for many black and brown sistahs. Critiques of hair texture and color pervade the piece as Nerve is forced to change her hair so many times that it eventually falls out. What is unique about this poem that is representative of the larger body of work is the interaction amongst the goddesses. Nerve speaks her dilemma aloud as Truth and Fever respond forming their own cypher, their own circle of call and response.
The energy of the elements is also present in Joe Hernandez-Kolski’s play You Wanna Piece of Me? A solo performance play, Hernandez-Kolski’s piece is autobiographical in nature and the profundity of his work is found in his interaction with the on-stage DJ. For it is perhaps the presence of the DJ that gives this play its structural fluidity. Hernandez-Kolski narrates his story as a man of Polish and Mexican heritage cued by the musical interjections of the DJ. These interjections provide the basis of Hernandez- Kolski’s storytelling. The Roots, Talib Kweli, Prince and Van Halen curate a kind of bildungsroman that is, if nothing else, a microcosm of Hip Hop’s own coming of age story. As reader/audience member, we are challenged to re-think our notions of identity alongside Hernandez-Kolski as he navigates life on the west side of Chicago. And again we are cyphering.
This is an anthology that must be read.
I am appreciative for this body of work because it has not only introduced me to new writers/thinkers/creatives/playwrights, it has reminded me of my own covenant with Nommo: In the beginning was the word. And that word became flesh and birthed stories of movement and despair and redemption. This word reconciled our deepest creative intuitions with our most acute frustrations.
This word was Hip Hop.
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