Amahd

Sept. 15th, 2018

Def Poetry Jam was a great space to voice matters about society. Hosted by Mos Def, Def Poetry Jam was on air from 2002 through 2007 and featured many poets such as, Saul Williams, Alicia Keys, and Shihan. The diverse lineups and the wide range of topics touched on labeled the show to be a space of variety and vulnerability. Variety, in the sense that each artist was unique in style, flow, and genre; and vulnerability in the sense that it made both the performers and the crowd comfortable with discussing any topic.

Artists such as Saul Williams, talked about the idea of coded language in which it is our music that connects black people to their roots and it is the music that is changing and influencing the masses today. The heavy influence comes from the ideas the words portray, these same ideas and even phrases hold a deeper meaning that stem from societal issues that affect our communities. The more these words taint our image and the ideas of our people, the less connected we are to our roots.

Alicia Keys is an artist that uses her words to help connect back to our roots because it helps connect people with themselves. Her performance, “Prisoner of Words”, is about the importance of understanding how one feels, but at the same time how one cannot do that until one is able to identify and say what their problems are. The hardest part is understanding how you feel because there are no textbooks or classes that teach you how to talk about your feelings, and for people who don’t know how to, they become trapped in a box and are closed off to the world. People don’t know how to articulate how they feel so they become a prisoner, and it is only their words that can set them free. When one has control over their emotional health, that is when one will be able to cope with and understand how they feel.

Understanding one’s feelings makes it easier to feel comfortable with the idea of love. Artists like Shihan expressed their desires for love fairly often. This show had a confident and successful black man use the space provided to not only express his desires to love, but to tell other black men that love is natural, and it is okay to express their feelings no matter how extreme or how small they wished to express love.

Society tends to make emotions and genuinely loving seem negative or dangerous through the media and music. These artists use their poems to combat these negative portrayals. Def poetry jam gave these artist, and many others like them, the space to assemble together, the assurance and encouragement to be vulnerable, and the means to talk about any and every topic in our society.