First Night Knoxville 2012, Part 4: Black Atticus, Poetry, The Theorizt and Hip Hop

Black Atticus at the Hotel Oliver

It's a long title to a post and it was a lot to take in. After I left the sweet sounds of Carrie Rodriguez at the East Tennessee History Center, I walked to the Hotel Oliver, which is looking very nice these days, and served as the "spoken word" venue for the evening.  I couldn't really imagine where this might happen other than in the Peter Kern Library, but of course Mr. Kern had some celebration libation to share with the revelers, so that space was taken.


Advertised as a "poetry slam," I'm not sure that quite described it. Black Atticus hosted the event and for the time I was there he was the only person scheduled to recite. Eventually a couple of audience members agreed to share a poem. A young woman recited a cute, brief Shel Silverstein poem and a young man, who appeared to be acquainted with Black Atticus, presented a love poem more in the oral poetry style.

Poet at the Hotel Oliver

Poet at the Hotel Oliver

Black Atticus, who describes himself and many local fellow poets as "Carpet Bag Babies," referring to the local Carpet Bag Theater and the nurture they provide young artists, gave several stirring recitations. He's by turns funny, poignant and occasionally combative.


The poetry slams I've attended tend to feature angry poets and then a few angry poets. Emotion has to be powerful to come across from the stage in front of a tough audience and, I suppose, anger is the easiest emotion with which to do the trick. His poetry is much more complex and refined than most of the slam fare. He also mentioned that he likes to speak to middle and high schools and given that some of his poems seemed to challenge current assumptions endemic in teen culture, I'd say he has a good word to deliver and he certainly has the presence, intelligence and persona to pull it off in front of that extremely difficult audience.

The Theorizt, Latitude 35, First Night Knoxville 2012

The Theorizt, Latitude 35, First Night Knoxville 2012

From the Oliver we crossed Market Square. By we, I mean at least myself and Black Atticus because he was to be part of the next act performing downstairs in Latitude 35 in the space formerly known as the World Grotto. The Theorizt is a local hip-hop band voted the best in our city in the most recent Metropulse poll. With a little jazz, folk, mariachi and poetry under my belt for the night, it seemed like a logical next stop.


They blasted the crowd of about fifty who trickled into the underground space. The most enthusiastic was a ten-year-old (or so) with Kanye glasses and an Angry Birds t-shirt who wallowed about on the ground as if break-dancing and brought the house down. He was pretty proud of himself. A small contingent danced around him.

The Theorizt, Latitude 35, First Night Knoxville 2012

The Theorizt, Latitude 35, First Night Knoxville 2012

The music is difficult to pigeonhole. The first thought I had was Arrested Development, but that was mostly because I think Black Atticus looks a bit like Speech and maybe has some of him mannerisms. His poetry also breaks some of the same earth, at least thematically as Arrested Development. Additionally, this is hip-hop with actual music. By that I mean the drummer holds sticks, not a computer. The bass player actually plays a bass. The guitar player does not play a guitar, he coaxes, caresses and shreds the guitar. He's the most exciting guitarist I've run into in a while.


In addition to the music laying the foundation and the rapped lyrics, there is also melody. I realized early in the advent of rap that I need a little melody mixed in with the beat to listen for very long. So, Arrested Development, yes, but they are also heavier and harder driving. There is nothing like that guitar in Arrested Development. Then I thought of the Roots and that's a better analogy. If you like the Roots and their intelligent, hard-driving, musically sound in-your-face sound, you will like these guys. There is also a bit of Living Color (the band) in the sound of the guitarist and you'll surely hear a little Outkast. Mainly what you will hear is excellent music.

The Theorizt, Latitude 35, First Night Knoxville 2012

Black Atticus did most of the singing for the night and unfortunately I haven't sorted out the names of the others. They mentioned the guitarist was new, I believe, so I'm not sure the web page is accurate on that count. Just trust me that he is incendiary.


So, this turned out to be my favorite stop of the night. Something different from my usual fare became a new pleasure. I've "liked" their page and if you visit the web page linked above you can download five songs from their in-progress CD, "Samurai Love Songs," for free. I'm posting the the single "Call Me" below. See if you don't hear some Roots roots. I think you will.

First Friday - Early June in the City

Downtown Knoxville celebrates the first Friday of each month by having stores extend their hours. Music pops up in the usual places such as outside on Market Square and inside bars and restaurants, and in more unusual places such as art shops and stores. The focal points of the event have become, art, music and free food and beverages at various stops. The open container law seems to be more of a suggestion than an absolute rule for the evening.

All taken together, it is a festive event that draws families from the suburbs, students from UT, as well as people from the rest of the city and region, all mingling happily with downtown residents. Often something unexpected or interesting presents itself - usually of the pleasant variety. So far, I don't think a controversy has arisen about this event (unlike Sundown - see below), other than the fact that another part of town started doing the same thing and feathers were duly ruffled. In the past, the buzz on this night seemed more of a contrast to a typical Friday night. Any Friday night downtown is exciting now, but once a month there is a little something extra.

Last Friday being the first Friday in June, the festivities commenced once again. The first thing I ran into was the race for the "less competitive" runners in the one mile run sponsored by City People. The race is an annual stand alone event, but this year blended into the first annual International Biscuit Festival. More on that later. The race started at Pete's (Did you eat breakfast there yet? I'm going to keep asking until you do.) and finished on Market Street beside Krutch Park. Great fun. A number of recognizable downtown faces brought up the very end. I'll not name names in a public forum. You'll just have to look at the pictures.

The Athletes wait impatiently for the starting gun!

                                                                The children finish.

 

The Octogenarian finishes.

And who are those people in the back?

After that little bit of unexpected fun, I talked to Daniel (see story below) in the park and stopped by the Holston Building to speak to the good folks at the reception offered by Church Street United Methodist and then crossed Gay Street to have dinner at the French Market which serves delicious crepes Parisian style, complete with batter they import from said city. The lovely couple who own the restaurant lived in Paris and have done their best to recreate the kind of sidewalk cafe they loved there. They pushed me to vary from my standard ham and cheese crepe to try one with egg inside. It was great and they tell me that next time I have to eat one with a poached egg on top - "very traditional." I'll probably do just that. They haven't steered me wrong, yet.

I ate at an outside table, of course, and watched Daniel painting, talking to people and playing his guitar. Gay street isn't quite as good for people watching as Market Square, but it isn't bad, especially on a First Friday. As for inside seating, unless it is pouring rain or extremely hot or cold, how could you do anything else but sit outside? I wonder how many outside seats Knoxville has now on a Friday night. If any of you would like to count, I'll be happy to post the results. You could get the second Urban Blues award ever commissioned! Or not.

After dinner I walked down Gay Street toward the 100 block. That spot has been tortured with very complicated construction project for more than a year. I feel for them and try to visit often. They also have several excellent art galleries and you never know what art you might find. For example, you might just find an amazing showing of a rare print collection by Salvadore Dali! I couldn't believe my eyes. I try to stay in touch with what's happening downtown, but somehow I missed an entire Dali Exhibition at the UT Downtown Gallery. Dali was commissioned to illustrate Dante's Divine Comedy. One of the few sets of prints to remain intact was shown and it was chilling. I'm not an artist and certainly not an art critic, so I can't do it justice. It was overwhelming in its scope and more than slightly creepy. I'm not sure I'm any more keen on Dali's version of Dante's vision of Paradise than I am on their collective presentation of Hell. I'll have to ponder that on a second visit. Disturbing doesn't really cover it, but isn't that a primary function of art?

After leaving the gallery, I walked down Jackson Avenue, which is purported to be next on the make-over list for downtown. I wanted to walk through the Old City to see what was happening and to check in on Aisle Nine, the latest effort to bring groceries to the neighborhood, before ending the evening at Coffee and Chocolate. I'll write a piece on grocery stores sometime, since that is such a hot topic when downtown is mentioned. For now I'll say that I'm wanting to see the vegetables. There is a large candy aisle and more beer than I ever imagined seeing in one small place, but I'll try to hold out a little hope for now, that it will grow into something a little more, well, grocerieish..

So, after chatting with the couple minding the store and being told that vegetables would arrive next week, it was time to leave the Old City and walk back up the hill for coffee, right? Funny how the city seems to have its own plans. Java is the coffee house routinely voted as having the best coffee in town. Maybe I'll write about coffee sometime soon, but as I walked past it moving toward my usual coffee house, I was solicited to be a judge in the poetry slam that was about to erupt inside. I wasn't tempted at all to accept that offer, but I could not bring myself to walk away.

After a prolonged wait for a fifth judge to be cajoled from passersby, the contest finally began. Again, I read Metropulse and I keep my ears open, so how do I miss these great events? It turns out there are local slams, regularly held in Knoxville, but this one was regional - the Southern Fried Poetry Slam with teams from all over the southeast. Java was hosting the semi-finals with the finals to be held in the Auditorium Ballroom the following night. The event consists of poets performing solo or as a group with the audience sometimes loudly participating. There is a strict three minute time limit and all the pieces presented that evening were memorized  monologue or dialogue. Since the cadence is generally rapid fire, that's a lot of memorization.

The largest contingent was from New Orleans and their poems often contained references to post-Katrina life in their city. I met a nice guy from Jacksonville, Florida. I love events that blend races and this event was probably sixty percent black and forty percent white, which was fun. We just don't get so much of that in this town, as I mentioned in the Sundown blog. After each poet or group of poets presented, the five judges held up score cards rating the poets one to ten. Remember, these are judges that were pulled from the sidewalk. The scores were read from lowest (which always got booed) to highest. The middle three scores counted and were totaled.

These people were serious and intense. One poet lost points for exceeding the time limit and struck himself repeatedly in frustration. Another forgot his lines half way through and exited to supportive hugs while fighting back tears. Anger dominated as the emotion most often selected to drive the poems. The room was jammed with rivals, supporters and the odd curiosity seeker such as myself. As an event I would give it a ten. The poetry itself, I would say ranged from a five to a seven if it was written, but as presented it was very, very good. The coffee was great, too, though I couldn't give up my (standing room only) spot to get a refill, which was too bad.

Remember you can click the pictures to enlarge them. Not so great. Poets moved, the lighting was poor and I hated to use a flash, so that's what you get.

But what a great First Friday. By this time, it was near midnight and I walked back through the city toward home.

PS. I'm going to be busy with other things for the next few days, but tune in early next week for your next installment of life in the urban lane.