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(Due to a computer glitch, I lost the last half of this interview - it's why it ends so abruptly. My apologies.) Interview with: [beginning of conversation was unrecorded because of a technical error. The table was talking about the history of Lit-X and how Tina got involved in the Chicago poetry scene.] Okay, we're running again. Go on with what you were saying. TH: It's... being a part of the, you know, the ups and downs, you meet pretty interesting people. Although at that same time, the underground hip-hop scene is flourishing. This is right around 1990? TH: Yeah, 1990 through 1992. 1992 is when I really met a lot of interesting people, like Devol and Mario, in 1992. I met Maria McCray when I first started going to Spices. Reminded me a lot of how I could be if I get to her realm, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. TH: And Lucinda Boyd, Ann Marie, basically changed my whole thought process. 'Cause, you know, I was partying, doing a lot of stuff, and poetry basically kept me focused from a lot of riff-raff that I could have been involved in. It sounds, in general, that it was more of the scene going on than a specific individual. TH: Yeah, right, it's like... to try to name all of these people could take us forever. But nonetheless, a lot of these people have hit the door down there all the way from the time from when we did it inside the store, all the way to the back room, still going strong. The open-mic at Lit-X is held at an Afrocentric store, and the open mic is known primarily for African-American poets. Now, the first question I have for you about that subject is: was that store chosen deliberately to attract that kind of audience, or have you received that reputation because of where it's held? TH: Basically, when Spices closed down it was one of the only places where a black crowd could go. So, basically, a lot of the black poets came to the...tended to migrate to our door, which was fabulous to me. But we didn't say, "Okay, we're going to have an open mic and it's going to be black poets." It just so happens that this is one of the only places to develop at the time. And now there's a lot of places to go. And what do you like the most about the reputation that you have, and what do you like the least? TH: Um, the most... I mean, as it specifically relates to "this is known as a black poetry reading." TH: Basically, the diversity of the poets. We've had several prominent figures who have been gracious enough to come down and rant and rave... [laughter from table] ...you know, let off steam and what have you, and we've had some good and bad things happen, but that's all a part of the love that you carry with you, doing something like this. The worst thing was, people tried to put a label on something, you know, or call it one thing. It's kind of too divergent to have it happen. JL: Just the fact that we're in Wicker Park... TH: Mm-hmm. JL: ...it personifies the mixture. It's hard to be in a location like we are and not have people of all walks of life come through. Look at the different poetry coming though, they all operate on different levels. So the people that we get, people tend to follow them wherever they perform. So coming down here is something that convinces people all throughout the city to come down. From the Newsweek story, to the Tribune and Sun-Times, that's why people hear of us, even from out-of-town, and come down and find out what we're doing. I think it transcends race. I want to talk a little later about the reputation Lit-X is receiving from the interviews, but first I'd like to talk about Spices for a little bit -- and a very specific thing about Spices. Now, understanding that I was not living in Chicago while Spices was running...there's sort of a lore, a lot of stories that go around, and one of the stories was that people would shout 'Devil in the house'... [Tina breaks into laughter] ...whenever a white person would come in. Now the first question I want to ask you is do you think that the things that went on in Spices was a specific thing that was going on with that crowd, or is it an overall frustration of the Chicago poetry scene alltogether? TH: No, I would say basically that, speaking for myself, people at the time were getting into their so-called... JL: Culture. TH: Blackness and their culture and they were very... TS: Guarded. TH: Yeah, right... Was there a reason at the time to be guarded about the space, or was it just people having fun and... TH: You could take it both of those ways. At one point people would laugh and shout out and it was funny and stuff. And then people kept shouting it out, which gave them the reputation that it wasn't nothing but a bunch of hecklers and angry black people down here [table laughs], you know, 'I don't wanna go down there!' la-de-dah, but it wasn't like every white person that was down there...it was like saying 'virgin' [a common playful heckle throughout the Chicago poetry scene, referring to anyone new to that specific stage --Ed.]. It sounds like it was just another friendly heckle that goes on all over this city. TH: And a lot of people either took it out of context, started an uproar... one poet actually took it seriously and wrote to the Tribune about it [laughing] but there was a lot of stuff going on behind that at that time.... I don't even remember her name, but she was mad at a specific poet down there and she wrote the Tribune about it, and that's what gave up the whole boo-ha-ha and the whole thing, you know, which blew it up, but it wasn't nothing personal about it. It was just a thing that was said. DS: It was certain individuals. TH: Yeah, like somebody would be sitting way in the back, coming out of the bathroom... Yeah, all those people sitting at the back of all the bars... TH: Yeah! [table laughs] And they'd just scream shit out at will, and people took it personally. JL: Speaking of taking things out of context, people have to realize, like [Tina] said, people at that time, there was really a sharp rise in black consciousness. So when you've got a child with a new toy at Christmas, that child's going to try to protect that toy from the other kids. So when you have people who have been denied their culture and who they are for a long time... TH: Yeah. JL: ...and you finally discover that, it's like, 'Hey!' And it's not like you're shutting down everyone else's poetry or trying to get people away from you, but, you know, there's a fine line between being overly guarded and being guarded for a reason. TH: If you get a chicken wing and all of a sudden another picnic comes along and tries to pick it, you guard it. It's the whole consciousness thing. JL: We don't have a lot of things that are ours. This actually brings up another thing I wanted to ask you guys. I think everyone in Chicago in the poetry scene recognizes the necessity of having open mics that are based around different races. What do you think of that? The necessity of race based open mics? TH: Mmm... Or maybe it's too simplistic a question. TH: What I try to do is have an open door for everybody. Well, and when I've read at Lit-X before, I got a very, very deliberate feeling from you that you're trying to run a very open mic. TH: I'm very much trying to do that, because if we keep basing everything on race, we're not going to get anywhere. Just know also that I'm trying to make my people aware. There's still a long way to go. But if somebody can come out and hear a white person or a Vietnamese person coming out, having the same problems that they've got, maybe that'll bridge some of that gap that we have, pull down a lot of truth. I'm not trying to save the whole world right now [laughs]. Do you think it's still important to have these open mics that we have right now in Chicago, that are primarily black, primarily Latino, primarily gay? JL: I don't think it's important, because number one, like she says, it builds more bridges, and we've got enough, I mean, we have enough obstacles. Getting back to this neighborhood [Wicker Park] and how open it is...it's important for black people to have something that they call their own, yeah, but black people historically have been a very open and welcoming people to other people, to come in and embrace our culture. As long as you respect it, that's fine, and it's still that way. I don't think it's necessary for people to be separated. Chicago is too segregated as it is. TH: Right, it's too segregated anyway. It's the whole black-white-poor thing. I want you to feel comfortable coming through the doors. JL: And maybe learn something. Learn something about black culture that maybe you didn't understand and were afraid to ask. And it's the same for us. There might be some questions about hispanic culture that I might be too afraid to ask but, if I go to a poetry reading, I learn. What kind of readings do you do outside of Lit-X? Do you go to a lot of different things in town? TH: Yes. I try to frequent as much as I can, but my schedule, you know, me working eight and a half hours every day and doing my own thing. I try to pick out the best things to fill the time that I have. And what kind of readings is it that you end up going to? TH: I like the ones where basically you're not inhibited from saying what you feel. For me, number one, poetry is always something that's a feeling or a downstairs emotion and getting that out so you can go on to the next phase. If I can find a reading like that where there are poets who have good writing or if the crowd's energy is really high, I can go out and have a good time. Those are the ones I like, whatever part of the city it is. Yeah. TH: Just that I'm comfortable walking through the door. And are you finding these places around town? TH: Yeah, The Guild Complex, and Mo Java when they have poetry readings, Jazz and Java, which is a very nice underground coffeehouse, very very nice. Places like that. JL: Tina's also going to be doing a lot of college gigs this fall -- she'll be at Roosevelt in a couple of weeks, and then next month at Western Illinois University. TH: I'm about to get the ed-u-ba-ca-ted crowd [table laughs], you know, hear my words [Tina laughs]. What is your background on that, by the way? Did you go to college? TH: No. The streets is my college. And I used to have a problem with that, I used to feel that something was wrong with me 'cause I didn't go get higher education. But being out here on these streets, learning how to interact with these people on a day-to-day...it's a lot of school. I plan on going back. I'm in the profession of hair, basically, beauty products by day. I've always been able to maintain a job through that, working at a salon. Hair's basically been my bread and butter for the last seven years. And how do you feel about going and performing at these college campuses now? TH: I don't really feel no way about it [table laughs]. To me, it's just like any other crowd...but I might have to make it PG or something, instead of rated R like it usually is -- tone down the brief nudity! [table laughs loudly] And adult content. But basically, just like anybody else, I don't let them scare me, just like I don't let the people that come down here [to Lit-X] scare me. But I'll see how I feel once I come back! [Tina laughs loudly] [After having JL whisper in his ear for a bit] What's going on with that, that's just been whispered in my ear? This song going on? TH: Oh! [whole table laughs and groans] I'm on a solo project... JL: There's two projects. Mention both of them. TH: Oh yeah! [Tina laughs] You see, that's why I've got a manager! [whole table laughs loudly] The first project that I worked on was back in May. It dropped recently and it's called "Word Sound Power," an Urban Sound Gallery project. That was produced by Levon Trent, who produces dance music. Very beautiful dance music, I might add. He has a lot of soul. It was pretty enough for me to work on. I tend to like pretty music. The second project... JL: The first project, by the way, is... [Tina laughs] ...is doing pretty well overseas, and it's just arrived at Beat Parlor in Wicker Park... Go buy it! [table laughs] Word Sound Power! TH: The second project is on a compilation album, and it's on... you gotta help me with this, J. JL: The second project is on a compilation album through Guidance Records, a local label, and it features twelve poets, five of which are area poets, and they're all a part of Tina's family, 5A Artist Management. It's due to be released in January of 1998. Nice, nice. Now let's move on to what we had just started to talk about a little earlier, which is about Lit-X itself and the attention it's been receiving. Now I'm going to repeat a little information for the purposes of the article, stuff you know already. It's not a secret that a lot of interviews are being done right now about Lit-X, including Newsweek, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, places like that. And it's also not a secret that you've been critical of several of the finished articles that have come out. Let's talk a little bit about the problems with the articles -- what were the things that happened between the interview and the article that didn't sit right? Why have you been critical? TH: I haven't really been critical--my partners, basically, have been critical. To me, there is no such thing as bad press. Bad press always makes people want to do more, and that's a good thing. The Tribune article that was written back in... March, was it? JL: Yeah, March. TH: Basically was written by an observer who didn't really know much about the scene. She came in and basically wrote some very hard tunes that people weren't able to.... It wasn't the fact that she wrote the article. She didn't describe the poetry. She described the way people looked or the way people were dressed, or personal features about them, which a lot of people felt was low. It basically hurt a lot of feelings. I was quoted as being a poet with rusty dreads and flinging a beer in one hand, and when the little excerpt from the poem was printed, it had a particular line in there that made me sound like I was drinking it hard in there, which wasn't really the case. The poem was basically about a woman who had her heart broken by a particular cat and she didn't really think she would amount to anything--it basically pulled her apart. And [the Tribune reporter] could have wrote the article and filled it with poetry and this-and-that, this-and-that, but she's calling a lot of poets "animated" and another name that I won't mention in this article... [table starts laughing] ...or I'll get my ass whupped! [table laughs loudly] JL: Yeah! TH: Yeah, I won't even go there, but a lot of things were said that really wasn't supposed to be said. Well, there's a common complaint about that [in the overall Chicago poetry scene]. There's a lot of journalists that try to do these articles about creative themes, no matter what the medium is... TH: Right. ...and they just totally get it wrong. They just concentrate on the stuff that we don't want. We want to talk about a certain sort of thing... JL: And the thing about [the Tribune] reporter is that she wasn't there long enough in the first place to even talk to anyone, to get anything. She left so fast... TH: She didn't ask any questions. She just came down and saw the people down there on a personal appearance level, and not really dive into what anybody was saying, or the feeling or the ambiance on the night, or anything like that. Well, that was the next question I was going to ask you. Given an article that was going to be written about Lit-X, what would you like to see written about it? It sounds like you would like to see an article out about the spirit going on down there. TH: Yeah! What a person learned, why they were there. Stop trying to be a journalist and being so suit-and-tie-ish, and start writing about how you felt being there, about the night and being around all those poets. Did any of that hit you? Could you identify with any of the poets? No matter if they came and they were naked or whatever. Did you identify with what the person was saying, instead of attacking the personal appearance. We're at a point in Chicago history where there are several mostly-black poetry nights going on all over the city. But Lit-X is getting picked out to be the focus of most of these articles. Do you have an opinion on why that is? JL: Lit-X has been around the longest, and it's always come with quality poets. As Tina said, I think that's always been the appeal. And it still has such an underground feel, people are really enjoying it. You know, earthy and funky, you see? Uh-huh. JL: And I think the number one thing is that it's been around the longest. Everyone knows Tina, she's a great host, people always feel at home coming down, and word of mouth. TH: We didn't pass out flyers for years, it was just word of mouth--telling people about it at parties, tell my homies that there's an open mic. We used to go for hours and hours. But that was when we were undisciplined. [table laughs loudly] We were just winging it! JL: And back when we were younger and didn't have anything else to do. [whole table groans and laughs loudly] When you could do that all night and it didn't matter! TH: You get a job, and all of a sudden you need sleep and all that, you gotta curb down the time. But it used to be all night and 'hey, when am I going to read?' At the time, I didn't even have a list -- I would try to do it all from memory. And then I had to get a list [laughs]. We were just trying to do a lot of things and over the years we barged into other levels, which is why we went to Howard [Bailey, the owner of the "Lit-X/Anotha Level" space for the open mic] and he put his addition on and called it "Anotha Level," 'cause we were getting more clothes, more different kinds of stock, and then more people, who I had never seen before, because at the time we had these regulars, and then these people would come and they would have two or three people with them. And now, more and more each week, I get a new crowd of people who I've never seen before, who just heard about it. They'll come to my job and I'll just hand them a flyer and, like, 'There's poetry tonight, I've got this flyer, try to come by' and they're like 'is it going on?' and I'm like 'yeah!' and they come down. And this leads to my next question--and you may disagree with this... TH: Okay... ...but in a lot of ways, you're being set up almost as a spokesperson for the black poetry scene, you know what I mean? You're the one being the focus for a lot of these articles and interviews. Do you get flack or shit from other people in the poetry scene? TH: Yeah, people are always doing that. You're trying to mend, you're trying to do the right thing, trying to get over a certain gap or obstacle in your life, and people come and try to rip that from you. Or try to break down your self-esteem, try to make you feel that you're doing wrong. Yeah, I get that. JL: The price of fame! What's your opinion on that? And just from a personal standpoint, what are some of your worries about being put in that position? Do you worry about it at night when no one else is around? TH: Yeah, I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't frightened by it, by when people look up to you. I don't know, it's frightening but it's a good feeling, because I know I'm doing the right thing. I know I'm living right for Tina. And, you know, bring the articles on... How do you deal with all that stuff going on? TH: I just deal with it! I got too many other worries going on in my life... [table laughs] ...with just trying to get my thing together, with the tour and going places and doing poetry. I just want to put out quality work, and that's my only job. I show up to my job and hopefully have fun with it. I'm like Michael Jordan--what do you want me to do? You pass me the ball, I'm going to shoot it in--I'm going to get the points. It's not really anything I can describe. I don't really know how to feel about that. Just gotta do the job. It's a difficult question to answer if you're the person in that position. [points to JL and DS] Maybe I can get an opinion from you two. JL: I think, speaking as a manager, the hardest thing for her... we've got a lot of people on our roster from Lit-X. We've all known each other for years and that's what makes it a good relationship. And I'm a writer and a poet too, but I've been away from performance for like two years now. And looking at it from the other side now, the hardest thing is that we're getting so much acclaim now, and we're getting all these shows and offers. The hardest thing is handling the fact that it's not just something to do now just for fun. We want to KEEP it fun, but at the same time we want to keep in mind that this is a business now for us. There was a time when I never thought that poetry was something we could make a living from, but now that has changed. So the hardest thing is getting used to that and making the adaptation from just being a hanging out kind of thing to 'this is a business' and this is something we need to do not only to feed ourselves and make a living but also that we put out an important message. We're educating people. It's not just a poetry thing where you come and hear poetry about love and how your lover did you wrong and your dog ran away... that's not the kind of messages we're putting out. We're trying to make an impact on society as a whole, not just black society. We're trying to make commentaries that speak to everyone. I think that's something important that needs to be said about poetry in Chicago. That, just like you said, it's not just a matter of saying, 'We're trying to make an impact in black poetry or white poetry' or anything like that, but people in Chicago really look at it in a community view, you know? It's one of the really nice things about being a poet in Chicago. People look at it in a much more city-wide view, all around. JL: Yeah. This melts into my next question, which is that there's this newfound national attention to the Chicago poetry scene. Things have been happening in the last year like "love jones" coming out, that was based on Spices, and it became a much, much more popular movie than anyone thought it was going to be... [at this point the tape stops without the table knowing and some conversation is lost] Okay, we're running again. JL: I think naturally with the hip-hop scene, which is really a near and dear cousin to poetry, really the same thing, just differences in delivery and production, whatever. I think on the whole, a lot of people nationally were looking for good things to come out of Chicago. They've been looking at hip-hop for years, and things are starting to pick up now. It's been at a slower pace for awhile, but in 1997 we made leaps and bounds, entertainment as a whole, but especially poetry. And it's something the city can rally behind, like the Bulls. It's something Chicago can claim a special right to, the spoken word genre, while a lot of cities can't say that. And the movie kind of brought that back home. TH: I'd like to elaborate on the movie. [Theodore Wicher, the writer/director of 'love jones'] was another influential person down at Spices to me. Here he is, this little tiny man, but who could really write a script that was... really made a lot of points, but too bad he couldn't do it like I know he would have, but he did it out here and it brought mad attention to everybody and everything connected to the whole poetry scene. If it wasn't for his movie coming out, I don't think Newsweek would have come down so soon. Right! [table laughs] And that's a crucial question that needs to be asked--is the national attention necessarily a good thing? Is it good for these poets to get this exposure on a national level, or should we worry about it? TH: Oh, uh, well... [Jason laughs] For me personally, I've seen the rise and fall and the second coming of irae, hip-hop, a lot of different things. We need to look at everybody's scenes--all the microscenes--and make sure that the people running the money, or the media or whoever, who come in and associate all the bad things... like that the fall of disco was due to coke and promiscuous sex, so they thought to associate that with disco, when disco wasn't even about that. It was about the whole scene of going out and dancing and letting your hair down. But then you have people who come along and throw a lot of bullshit in and get the national attention and then you have people fighting, and then you have 'down with hip-hop,' or down with anything. You just have to make sure that the outside forces don't come in and do that to us. Come in and rip it up. JL: One other thing about that, too. I think part of the change of switching focus to poetry has been because of all the violence and negativity that's been associated with hip-hop. TH: Mm-hmm. JL: Poetry's the next best thing, and you see a lot of advertisers and a lot of people embracing poetry because it's a lot safer. We may say controversial things about different issues, but for whatever reason, it's been embraced a lot more quickly than hip-hop. I guess it's something where people think it has a lot longer history... but it really doesn't. They both probably date back to antiquity, anyway. But poetry is seen as a lot safer vehicle. Is that something that's made up by a lot of people? The experience I can tell you about is that I just went to the National Poetry Slam this summer, and this hotel that we stayed at just had no idea what was going to go on. They put up 160 poets in the hotel, and they had some sort of... I don't know. Some sort of attitude or mindset that all these people were going to be college professors, with patches on their elbows of their suitjackets or something. And we all went out and got TRASHED the first night, 160 poets got trashed and were skinny-dipping in the pool, and the hotel just FREAKED OUT. Is this something artificial, where the media looks at it and says, 'poetry's going to be safer than hip-hop?' Assign these false feelings of chaos to hip-hop and not poetry? JL: To an extent, I think. There's rap artists that people look at and think of as safe -- Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. I think a lot of it is about how the media presents it. If someone were to come see a show by Marvin Tate or someone like that, they might not come back with the same report. They might not bring people to come see a brother like that, because his show is controversial. TH: It's just like everything. There's your conscious earthy poets, there's your butterfly poets, there's your blue-collar working poets, there's your booty poets... [table laughs] ...people that strictly come out to get ass! [loud laughter from whole table] No names being mentioned tonight! TH: People who come out strictly to play on the minds of... I'm not going to say helpless women [laughs]... Copyright 1997, Jason Pettus. All rights reserved. |