Rhyme and Reason

Passionate, socially aware spoken word, emphatic, halfway between beat poetry and rap. From a minority experience point of view. Rhymes rolling off the tongue, rap-style. Performed by four artists, scattered throughout the album. Recorded live—you can hear the audience laugh, applaud, and empathize. FCCs are cleaned up already, backwardized. I like 15 and 16, but all are nifty.

1. (1:05) extemporaneous intro to track 2
2. (2:57) imagined tirade of an old beat poet being read in cheesy coffee houses
3. (0:42) intro to track 4 (his history of being clean and out of jail)
4. (4:04) “poem about being devalued” segregation, rehab, falling out of society
5. (1:47) riff on “Hispanic,” the sound of the word, and the concept
6. (2:22) “romance” is commercial crap; let’s connect with the world and our people
7. (3:07) (funny) being deaf, dumb, and blind is cowardly—gotta look at yoself
8. (2:56) surviving sexual abuse as a child (and abortion?)
9. (4:44) struggling to be a good person—the struggling is the living
10. (1:47) being pushed by prejudice from schoolchild to doin’ time
11. (0:43) intro to track 12—“hope after dope”
12. (4:33) too much societal pressure? You have a heart attack—but you’ll get no sympathy
13. (4:16) it’s not who you want me to be, babe; it’s who I want you to be.
14. (0:23) intro to track 15
15. *(2:34) “I couldn’t die until I found someone to wash my body, so I am alive.”
16. *(2:05) (contains intro) about perms as self-torture
17. (3:33) the world sucks, but you are hot, Black man, and our race lives on.
18. (2:13) sexy poem about pancakes