Come Out Of Her-CD Review and Interview with Yahle'ach Bat Yisrael

"...I remember going to Church on long Sunday's

bathing in hymns they woo'd

acting like they catching the ghost

when they really fighting the truth

as butts barely touch seats

ignorant Negroes dancing with educated feet

to songs that deceive us 

'cuz ya'll there really is something

about that name Jesus

it doesn't complete us

matter fact it leads us astray

pure corruption causing an eruption

between the unity of YHWH and me

you see the J wasn't there in time 

to sit on lines and watch Jesus walk

it was still growin' a tail

but who really did their part &

studied their history uncovering 

mysteries conspired by copy and paste liars

who used only adjectives and titles

that has to be suicidal when calling on the name

is your only survival but somehow

if my momma called him JC

imma call him JC you may call me crazy 

but who really has time for fishing

when you can always rely on some good ol' tradition

dismissing truth especially about 

black folks being the biblical Hebrews..."

Yahle'ach in the Hebrew tongue means "force of YHWH." YHWH (Yahweh) being the proper name of the Mighty One of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which is who this poet recognizes as her King, Lawgiver, Judge and Savior. With a compelling sense of urgency, Howard University Theater graduate Yahle'ach's spoken word CD "Come Out Of Her" is a indeed a force to be reckoned with. A cultural and spiritual diatribe against the political, social, religious and convoluted way of life that exists in America, especially amongst the so-called African-American, this project delves into the depths of one woman's quest to uncover the truth and share her discoveries through her art. A masterfully composed work, Yahle'ach demonstrates her talents cultivated at Howard to use her voice to enhance the powerful poetry on this project. Each track reveals the creative genius of this dedicated wife and mother.

Laced with Scriptural references and proclaiming a warning from the book of Revelation chapter 18 verse 4 from where the title of the CD comes, Yahle'ach delivers poignant punch lines pleading with her listeners to recognize what she sees as the "falling of Babylon," which she says prophetically is identified as the United States. A Hebrew Israelitess, each track on the CD addresses an issue that is presently and has historically plagued the so-called African-American; identity. From the invocation of the Aharonic priestly blessing found in Numbers 6 at the introduction of the CD to the blazing last track, Sistah, featuring vocalist Naki'yah and spoken word artist Queen Shavonne, Come Out Of Her, is one of the most provocative, informative and challenging spoken word CD's released in the last couple of years. An original piece of work, from an original artist at work, Come Out Of Her brings a much needed dimension to the spoken word genre with the cultural, political, social and spiritual concepts to elevate the minds of its listeners.

On the title track, Come Out Of Her, featuring her brother-in-faith Davar, the two combine to lyrically summon those who see the signs out of Babylon over the classic hip-hop track Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like That) by Digable Planets. With the soulful Favor, featuring vocalist Nayimyahu, another brother-in-faith, a self-reflective work emerges that causes the listener to assess their personal relationship with their Creator. The hard hitting False Prophets is a charge against the wolves in sheep clothing behind the pulpit who lead the sheep astray with doctines that are knowingly mingled with falsehood. And with the most creative piece by far on the track, Sistah, sister-in-faith and vocalist Nakiyah along with spoken word artist Queen Shavonne lay down a well crafted masterpiece challenging their sistahs to "rise and receive their crown."

Boasting a whopping seventeen track selection, the project moves to a powerful rhythm and even has three interludes that provide dynamic segways to the tracks that follow. Though the CD is her first release as a spoken word artist, Yahle'ach is no stranger to the field of performance, as she has performed professionally on stage locally and nationally. But with spoken word, she is able to combine all elements of performance into one that creates a sheer captivating performance. And with the release of Come Out Of Her, Yahle'ach is able to allow the listener to linger over and contemplate the message that she brings. 

Recently, Urban Literation had an opportunity to get into the mind of Yahle'ach to ask her about her CD and her art. Below is the transcript of the interview with spoken word artist Yahle'ach:

1. How and why did you choose the title Come Out Of Her for your CD?

The title ‘The Warning: Rev. 18:4’ stems from the scripture in the bible, which reads: “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.” Basically encouraging people to “Come out of Her” spiritually and physically.  Several tracks on the album speak of the oppression, deception, and corruption residing in America and this project informs and inspires people to remove themselves from such a wicked system. 

2. What are some of the concepts that are present on the project?

The concept of this project asks the question “what if your country was under attack, what would you do?” Between each poem short theatrical interludes reenact that idea and how people respond to it and the poetry surrounding the chaos reveal why these attacks are happening. It’s a deep album, but it’s also empowering, thought-provoking, Biblically-inspired, and has a humorous theatrical flair.

3. You use many scriptural references throughout this CD, can you explain the relevance of them to the project.

My spirituality and my relationship with Most High have grown tremendously and I want to reflect this maturation in everything I put my hands to. The Bible has become such an intricate part of my being that this project wouldn’t be possible without the breath and life residing in those pages.

4. What was the creative process like on putting this project together?

The creative process was so liberating and joyous! It was such a blessing working with some of the best poets, engineers, producers, singers, and actors in the area. We all worked really hard to put this album together and it’s evident in each track.

5. Can you tell us about your spirituality?

My spirituality reflects the Word in deed and truth. It’s a process and I make mistakes daily, but there’s beauty and inspiration in knowing you can always improve and ultimately reach perfection. Why would the Father tells us to ‘be perfect’ if it were unattainable? I know that sin is lawlessness and lawlessness can prevent one from eternal life, so I believe in being not only a hearer of the word (the laws) but a doer and I pray that resonates in everything I do. 

6. Tell us more about your back ground culturally and educationally.

I’ve been writing poetry since about 8 years old. I found such joy and freedom in writing that I began to explore the structure of short stories and plays. While in high school I submitted two plays to a local theater and they were graciously received and performed by professional actors and that’s when I understood the power of the pen. After graduation, I wanted to improve my artistic skills and attended Howard University in the fall and studied Theater. While residing in D.C. I was exposed to an amazing, unapologetic world of artistry. From witnessing my first hip hop theater play by the talented Kamilah Forbes to the incredible, unrelenting poets at open mic nites; this place allowed me to birth words verbally that silently sat on pages.  And that’s when I knew I wanted to become a spoken word artist.

7. How has art been a part of your life?
 

Art has been around since birth because my mother is a very artistic person. My sister is also an artist and fashion designer and I’ve always had a passion for the arts. I’ve been performing since I was very young and it has been a significant part of who I am and the projects I produce.

8. Who or what is your inspiration?

My inspiration comes from the Most High. Usually reading the word or sitting in complete solitude will evoke an idea for a poem and instantly I begin to write and at times research.  Once I’m satisfied with the completion of the piece I study it, like you would a script, and use techniques from my theater background to develop a spoken word performance piece. Most of the tracks on my debut album were created with this format in mind and fused together perfectly for the completion of this project. My desire is to embark upon this influential journey like some of my favorite artists like Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Lauryn Hill, Talib Kweli, India Arie, Queen Godis, Sunni Patterson, Amir Sulaiman…and incite change.

9. What's artistically ahead for Yahle'ach?

I’ve just completed a Hebrew Children’s album that will be available next year. It’s a 10 track CD teaching children Hebrew in a fun and creative way. I believe Hebrew is our native tongue and one of the best ways of learning is through song. This lively innovative 10 track album will encourage children to dance and sing along, while learning at the same time! And I’m currently working on completing a poetry book! I’m so excited to share my amazing projects with the wonderful Ulit readers! Thank you for your support!

Yahle’ach can be reached at poetic_parables@yahoo.com.

To purchase the CD click here

INspyreLife: The CD Review and Interview

"...every single person listening to this CD

has a destiny that they have to fulfill in this life

but the difference between me and most people

is that I already knew mine before I had a mind

'cuz before I was conceived

my God told my spirit that He wanted me to shine

so that I can brighten hopes & 
spit life into the dreams of others

use this poetry to speak in tongues &

inspire life from the lines that leave my lungs

for it is my destiny

I was predestined

you can’t stop me

'cuz it’s meant to be..."

-Destiny-

Spiritual. Sultry. Jazzy. Cultural. Conscious. Genuine. Passionate. Powerful. Insightful. INSPIRING! These are just a few words that describe Tyree "Nspyre" Thomas' fresh(wo)man spoken word release entitled INspyreLife. A moving selection of seven potent spoken word pieces, each track tells her story of becoming and overcoming through faith as she fought against trial after trial, yet managed to grow stronger from each experience. Turning her tests into a literal testimony, Nspyre speaks off the cuff and to the heart of many issues that Black women everywhere today are facing.

From the opening cut "Destiny" which tells of her inevitable life as a spoken word artist, to the last track "Bastard Child," a gut wrenching tale of rising above early life obstacles with her faith in God and the support of her mother which allowed her to become the woman that she is today, INspyreLife is a CD that will definitely elevate the listeners mind while at the same time dazzle the ear with excellent word play and fitting musical production.

A powerful introduction into the realm of spoken word on disc, Nspyre delivers a phenomenal selection of poetic reflections that tells the tale of "just another ghetto child with underpriviledged circumstances" who has come into her gift to Nspyre lives with her artform as she:

"writes to turn her depression into a confession...

use[s] th[e] pad to conquer her fear of expression

use[s] th[e] pen to teach those about [he]r real life lessons

use[s] th[e] gift of speech to teach those that are out of [her] reach..."

And each time that Nspyre finds herself on stage behind a mic, she always gives it her all. And now that she has a CD to accompany her wherever she might find herself performing, she will be able to leave her audience with a piece of her soul with her first spoken word CD release, INspyreLife.

To learn more about Tyree "N'Spyre" Thomas, watch the interview below:

Literary Giant: Amiri Baraka aka LeRoi Jones

Black Art

Poems are bullshit unless they are
teeth or trees or lemons piled
on a step. Or black ladies dying
of men leaving nickel hearts
beating them down. Fuck poems
and they are useful, wd they shoot
come at you, love what you are,
breathe like wrestlers, or shudder
strangely after pissing. We want live
words of the hip world live flesh &
coursing blood. Hearts Brains
Souls splintering fire. We want poems
like fists beating niggers out of Jocks
or dagger poems in the slimy bellies
of the owner-jews. Black poems to
smear on girdlemamma mulatto bitches
whose brains are red jelly stuck
between 'lizabeth taylor's shoes. Stinking
Whores! We want 'poems that kill.'
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland. Knockoff
poems for dope selling wops or slick halfwhite
politicians Airplane poems, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...tuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuh
...rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...Setting fire and death to
whities ass. Look at the Liberal
Spokesman for the jews clutch his throat
& puke himself into eternity...rrrrrrr
There's a negroleader pinned to
a bar stool in Sardi's eyeballs melting
in hot flame Another negroleader
on the steps of the white house one
kneeling between the sheriff's thighs
negotiating cooly for his people.

Agggh...stumbles across the room...
Put it on him, poem. Strip him naked
to the world! Another bad poem cracking
steel knuckles in a jewlady's mouth
Poem scream poison gas on beats in green berets
Clean out the world for virtue and love,
Let there be no love poems written
until love can exist freely and
cleanly. Let Black People understand
that they are the lovers and the sons
of lovers and warriors and sons
of warriors Are poems & poets &
all the loveliness here in the world

We want a black poem. And a
Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem
And Let All Black People Speak This Poem
Silently
or LOUD


Source

Amiri Baraka was born LeRoi Jones in 1934 in Newark, New Jersey. He attended Rutgers University and Howard University, spent three years in the U.S. Air Force, and returned to New York City to attend Columbia University and the New School for Social Research. Baraka has become most known for his strident social criticism, often writing in an incendiary style that has made it difficult for some audiences and critics to respond with objectivity to his works. Throughout his career his method in poetry, drama, fiction, and essays has been confrontational, calculated to shock and awaken audiences to the political concerns of black Americans. Baraka’s own political stance has changed several times, thus dividing his oeuvre into periods: as a member of the avant-garde during the 1950s, Baraka—writing as Leroi Jones—was associated with Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; in the ‘60s, he moved to Harlem and became a Black Nationalist; in the ‘70s, he was involved in third-world liberation movements and identified as a Marxist. More recently, Baraka has been accused of anti-Semitism for his poem “Somebody Blew up America,” written in response to the September 11 attacks.

Baraka has incited controversy throughout his career. He is praised for speaking out against oppression as well as accused of fostering hate. Critical opinion has been sharply divided between those who agree, with Dissent contributor Stanley Kaufman, that Baraka’s race and political moment have created his celebrity, and those who feel that Baraka stands among the most important writers of the twentieth century. In theAmerican Book Review, Arnold Rampersad counted Baraka with Phyllis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison “as one of the eight figures . . . who have significantly affected the course of African-American literary culture.”

Baraka did not always identify with radical politics, nor did his writing always court controversy. During the 1950s Baraka lived in Greenwich Village, befriending Beat poets Allen Ginsberg, Frank O’Hara, and Gilbert Sorrentino. The white avant-garde—primarily Ginsberg, O’Hara, and leader of the Black Mountain poets Charles Olson—and Baraka believed in poetry as a process of discovery rather than an exercise in fulfilling traditional expectations. Baraka, like the projectivist poets, believed that a poem’s form should follow the shape determined by the poet’s own breath and intensity of feeling. In 1958 Baraka founded Yugen magazine and Totem Press, important forums for new verse. His first play, A Good Girl Is Hard to Find, was produced at Sterington House in Montclair, New Jersey, that same year. Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, Baraka’s first published collection of poems appeared in 1961. M. L. Rosenthal wrote in The New Poets: American and British Poetry since World War II that these poems show Baraka’s “natural gift for quick, vivid imagery and spontaneous humor.” Rosenthal also praised the “sardonic or sensuous or slangily knowledgeable passages” that fill the early poems. While the cadence of blues and many allusions to black culture are found in the poems, the subject of blackness does not predominate. Throughout, rather, the poet shows his integrated, Bohemian social roots. The book’s last line is “You are / as any other sad man here / american.”

With the rise of the civil rights movement Baraka’s works took on a more militant tone. His trip to Cuba in 1959 marked an important turning point in his life. His view of his role as a writer, the purpose of art, and the degree to which ethnic awareness deserved to be his subject changed dramatically. In Cuba he met writers and artists from third world countries whose political concerns included the fight against poverty, famine, and oppressive governments. In Home: Social Essays (1966), Baraka explains how he tried to defend himself against their accusations of self-indulgence, and was further challenged by Jaime Shelley, a Mexican poet, who said, “‘In that ugliness you live in, you want to cultivate your soul? Well, we’ve got millions of starving people to feed, and that moves me enough to make poems out of.’” Soon Baraka began to identify with third world writers and to write poems and plays with strong political messages.


Richard Howard wrote of The Dead Lecturer (1964) in the Nation: “These are the agonized poems of a man writing to save his skin, or at least to settle in it, and so urgent is their purpose that not one of them can trouble to be perfect.”

Dutchman, a play of entrapment in which a white woman and a middle-class black man both express their murderous hatred on a subway, was first performed Off-Broadway in 1964. While other dramatists of the time were wedded to naturalism, Baraka used symbolism and other experimental techniques to enhance the play’s emotional impact. The play established Baraka’s reputation as a playwright and has been often anthologized and performed. It won the Village Voice Obie Award in 1964 and was later made into a film. The plays and poems following Dutchman express Baraka’s increasing disappointment with white America and his growing need to separate from it. Critics observed that as Baraka’s poems became more politically intense, they left behind some of the flawless technique of the earlier poems.
To make a clean break with the Beat influence, Baraka turned to writing fiction in the mid-1960s, penning The System of Dante’s Hell (1965), a novel, and Tales (1967), a collection of short stories. The stories are “‘fugitive narratives’ that describe the harried flight of an intensely self-conscious Afro-American artist/intellectual from neo-slavery of blinding, neutralizing whiteness, where the area of struggle is basically within the mind,” Robert Elliot Fox wrote in Conscientious Sorcerers: The Black Postmodernist Fiction of LeRoi Jones/Baraka, Ishmael Reed, and Samuel R. Delany.The role of violent action in achieving political change is more prominent in these stories, as is the role of music in black life.
In addition to his poems, novels and politically-charged essays, Baraka is a noted writer of music criticism. His classic history Blues People: Negro Music in White America (1963) traces black music from slavery to contemporary jazz. Finding indigenous black art forms was important to Baraka in the ‘60s, as he was searching for a more authentic voice for his own poetry. Baraka became known as an articulate jazz critic and a perceptive observer of social change. As Clyde Taylor stated in Amiri Baraka: The Kaleidoscopic Torch, “The connection he nailed down between the many faces of black music, the sociological sets that nurtured them, and their symbolic evolutions through socio-economic changes, in Blues People, is his most durable conception, as well as probably the one most indispensable thing said about black music.” Baraka also published the important studies Black Music (1968) and The Music: Reflections on Jazz and Blues (1987). Lloyd W. Brown commented in Amiri Baraka that Baraka’s essays on music are flawless: “As historian, musicological analyst, or as a journalist covering a particular performance Baraka always commands attention because of his obvious knowledge of the subject and because of a style that is engaging and persuasive even when the sentiments are questionable and controversial.”

After Black Muslim leader Malcolm X was killed in 1965, Baraka moved to Harlem and founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School. The Black Arts Movement helped develop a new aesthetic for black art and Baraka was its primary theorist. Black American artists should follow “black,” not “white” standards of beauty and value, he maintained, and should stop looking to white culture for validation. The black artist’s role, he wrote in Home: Social Essays (1966), is to “aid in the destruction of America as he knows it.” Foremost in this endeavor was the imperative to portray society and its ills faithfully so that the portrayal would move people to take necessary corrective action. Baraka published the collection Black Magic in 1967. The poems chronicle his divorce from white culture and values while displaying his mastery of poetic technique. There was no doubt that Baraka’s political concerns superseded his just claims to literary excellence, and critics struggled to respond to the political content of the works. Some felt the best art must be apolitical and dismissed Baraka’s newer work as “a loss to literature.” Kenneth Rexroth wrote in With Eye and Ear that Baraka “has succumbed to the temptation to become a professional Race Man of the most irresponsible sort. . . . His loss to literature is more serious than any literary casualty of the Second War.” In 1966 Bakara moved back to Newark, New Jersey, and a year later changed his name to the Bantuized Muslim appellation Imamu (“spiritual leader,” later dropped) Ameer (later Amiri, “blessed”) Baraka (“prince”).

By the early 1970s Baraka was recognized as an influential African-American writer. Randall noted in Black World that younger black poets Nikki Giovanni and Don L. Lee(later Haki R. Madhubuti) were “learning from LeRoi Jones, a man versed in German philosophy, conscious of literary tradition . . . who uses the structure of Dante’s Divine Comedy in his System of Dante’s Hell and the punctuation, spelling and line divisions of sophisticated contemporary poets.” More importantly, Arnold Rampersad wrote in the American Book Review, “More than any other black poet . . . he taught younger black poets of the generation past how to respond poetically to their lived experience, rather than to depend as artists on embalmed reputations and outmoded rhetorical strategies derived from a culture often substantially different from their own.”

After coming to see Black Nationalism as a destructive form of racism, Baraka denounced it in 1974 and became a third world socialist. He produced a number of Marxist poetry collections and plays in the ‘70s that reflected his newly adopted political goals. Critics contended that works like the essays collected in Daggers and Javelins (1984) lack the emotional power of the works from his Black Nationalist period. However, Joe Weixlmann, in Amiri Baraka: The Kaleidoscopic Torch, argued against the tendency to categorize the radical Baraka instead of analyze him: “At the very least, dismissing someone with a label does not make for very satisfactory scholarship. Initially, Baraka’s reputation as a writer and thinker derived from a recognition of the talents with which he is so obviously endowed. The subsequent assaults on that reputation have, too frequently, derived from concerns which should be extrinsic to informed criticism.”

In more recent years, recognition of Baraka’s impact on late twentieth-century American culture has resulted in the publication of several anthologies of his literary oeuvre. The LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader (1999) presents a thorough overview of the writer’s development, covering the period from 1957 to 1983. The volume presents Baraka’s work from four different periods and emphasizes lesser-known works rather than the author’s most famous writings. Transbluency: The Selected Poems of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1961-1995), published in 1995, was hailed by Daniel L. Guillory in Library Journal as “critically important.” And Donna Seaman, writing in Booklist, commended the “lyric boldness of this passionate collection.” Kamau Brathwaite described Baraka’s 2004 collection, Somebody Blew up America & Other Poems, as “one more mark in modern Black radical and revolutionary cultural reconstruction.” The book contains Baraka’s controversial poem of the same name, which he wrote as New Jersey’s poet laureate. After the poem’s publication, public outcry became so great that the governor of New Jersey took action to abolish the position. Baraka sued, though the United States Court of Appeals eventually ruled that state officials were immune from such charges.

Baraka’s legacy as a major poet of the second half of the twentieth century remains matched by his importance as a cultural and political leader. His influence on younger writers has been significant and widespread, and as a leader of the Black Arts movement of the 1960s Baraka did much to define and support black literature’s mission into the next century. His experimental fiction of the 1960s is still considered some of the most significant African-American fiction since that of Jean Toomer. Writers from other ethnic groups have credited Baraka with opening “tightly guarded doors” in the white publishing establishment, noted Murice Kenney in Amiri Baraka: The Kaleidoscopic Torch, who added: “We’d all still be waiting the invitation from theNew Yorker without him. He taught us how to claim it and take it.”

New Commercial By Ivory Laferriet

Mo Fiyah Tomorrow Night!!!

You know what it is!!!

It's that time again KC! Urban Literation is back this week with another presentation of ULIT 101: The Revolution of the Spoken Word! Tomorrow evening is sure to be another hot night of spoken word poetry featuring the hottest performance artists and poets in the city!

There will be drink specials, delectable appetizers and appetizing main dishes cooked up by Chef Ant.

Tell a friend and come on out and enjoy a wonderful evening of art, good music and positive vibes with Urban Literation's presentation of ULIT 101: The Revolution of the Spoken Word!

ULIT!!!