Deep
Juba Kalamka (pointfivefag) barely subsisting and living in a youth
hostel following a December 1998 move to San Francisco from Chicago,
takes the last $30 of his Starbucks paycheck and buys two tickets for
the 10th Anniversary screening of Marlon Riggs' Toungues Untied at the
Castro Theatre. Says pointfivefag, "I'd paid my rent for the next
two weeks, and the two tickets left me with $3 till we got tips the
next Friday. I'm thinking, I'm in 'Frisco, and it's my first pride event.
Do I miss this show, or go, be really broke and having smoething to
remember for life? I'm so glad I did." An erotic poetry reading
followed the screening, in which Tim'm T. West (25 percenter) was a
presenter alongside Jewel Gomez, G Winston James and Marvin K. White.
Struck by the first open description of queer desire in hip hop culture
he'd ever heard, Juba approached West following the reading and exchanged
phone numbers. After a week or so of phone tag, the two began hanging
out. On one occasion Juba was introduced to Louie Butler, who hosted
a series of popular spoken word events in downtown Oakland.
Juba
was in the beginning stages of recording what would become his first
solo spoken word/hip hop experiment - Pre/tensions, and now had the
opportunity to write and perform on a regular basis in a queer-friendly
context. Meanwhile, on Stanford's campus, Tim'm made his first connection
with Phillip Atiba Goff (lightskindid) a Philadelphia born, Harvard
grad/first-year psychology student. Says 25percenter: "In a typical
sort of Stanford-ish fashion someone asked me, "do you know Phill?
He has dreadlocks too, but he's lightskinded". The two began commiserating
around Stanford's Campus, the three finally meeting at a Stanford COHO
Spoken Word/Hip Hop show. It was at this point that the three realized
the intersection of their artistic and cultural sensibilities, and decided
to hang out to work together.
Adjourning
to a music room on Stanford's campus to jam in a piano room, Tim'm and
Juba rapped, sang and scatted while Phil spooke and wailed and played.
They came up with the basis for 15-20 songs (a number of which have
become BourgieBohoPostPomoAfroHomo), as well as the name Deep Dickollective
- a toungue in cheek fun-poke at the proliferation of womanist "punani
poet" enclaves in '90s spoken word circles. Around this time, 25percenter
and Pointfivefag had been making connections with Dazie R. Grego (Ms.Edge)
an Oakland poet who had been performing at the same spoken word events.
Although he would not work with them regularly until much later, his
creative energy and flavor made him an obvious choice when the group
began actively seeking new artists to work with.
Following
a radio simulcast of counter-hegemonic-to-the-military/industrial- cultural-production
poetry and song at a downtown Oakland theater space, conversation with
25percenter and Alexis "Promise" smith over a double cheeseburger
and chili fries inspired Ralowe Trinitroluene Ampu (G-Minus) to bring
his brand of scathing anarchy into the D/DC operation. 25percenter was
unsure with whether the young and apparently mental unstable individual
(who was dressed as the devil) was just another irrational radical or
in fact, a fag. Their first encounter was not the most harmonious, but
it was G-Minus' sincere passion for their art of rhyming which proved
irresistible and resulting in the near immediate installment in the
collective. G-Minus' most optimistic hopes of what the collective can
accomplish whill be to provide the psychological foundation for queer
youth around the world, who are alienated by patriarchal constraints;
from this, form the regimes which will annihilate the oppressive and
exploitative structures of the status quo.
OK,
not all members of D/DC carry G-Minus' optimism about the overthrow
of phallogocentrism or capitalism. But given the impress hip-hop has
had on culture internationally, the interventions lyrically and politically
of four queer Negroes is bound to have ripple effects. The point is
the D/DC represents a "coming out " in hip-hop about what
some of us have known for a long time: that any black cultural Renaissance
needs fags. There is no cypher without the sissy - whether they appear
as the abject reference of the insecure closer fagrapper or wheter the
fervor with which they approach lyricism, beatmaking, graffiti art,
or breakin has inspirations that have been cloaked in compulsory silence.
The
fag has entered and the cypher is stalled. The anti-gangster aesthetic
of quasi-Nationalist "conscious" hip-hoppers and bohemian
MC thrift shoppers pave a space for D/DC to articulate its word play.
They represent a political lyricism that does not take itself too seriously.
They are the brave mavericks of a movement that some affectionately
refer to as homo-hop. They are Oxymoronic "out" black queer
Emcees the world says do not exist. They are the rumblings of a revolution
that have for too long been silenced. Overstand? It's not that deep.
Booking/Management:
Monica Young/MY Ideas MYIdeas411@yahoo.com
http://www.deep-dickollective.com
http://www.mp3.com/deepdic
