Poetry Unplugged and other ways you can celebrate MLK’s legacy this weekend
Nothing against church, school and the like, but Poetry Unplugged, a night of spoken word and music inspired by the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. on Friday at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, won’t be quite like that.
“I think it’s a great date night,” poet jessica Care moore says, laughing. “It’s something smart that a guy can bring a girl to and get points for knowing about something culturally relevant. It’s not like a typical Martin Luther King program. It’s hip, it’s interesting, it’s cutting edge. It’s not speeches — it’s poetry, it’s art.”
You can count on that from the Detroit poet, who turned heads in 1995 by winning the televised “It’s Showtime at the Apollo” competition for five straight weeks, beginning with her provocative empowerment poem “Black Statue of Liberty.”
Two years later, she launched Moore Black Press and released her first book, “The Words Don’t Fit in My Mouth.” Along the way, she caught the attention of rappers like Nas, who used her rhythmic poetry to open and close his 1999 album, “Nastradamus,” and, years later, her friend Talib Kweli, who featured her on the “Attack the Block” mixtape in 2012.
She always loved music, of course, so when Questlove from The Roots turned her on to Betty Davis, the funk icon and former wife of Miles Davis who lives in Homestead, she founded Black Women Rock! in 2014, a music tribute she brought to the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival last summer.
“I do music,” she says, “’cause I can’t help myself. Kalamu ya Salaam, the famous elder poet, lives in New Orleans, told me that he felt with my work, I was searching for sound instead of structure. And as much as I’m a diehard poet and I became a poet from reading poets, I wanted to connect with more audiences and I wanted to connect with hearts in the way that music can just get with people. It can transform people in a different way.”
Working with jazz musicians, in 2014 she released her first album, “Black Tea: The Legend of Jessi James,” working in the spirit of legendary ’70s jazz-poet Gil Scott-Heron.
“I’m so Gil Scott-Heron, baby!” she says. “Gil Scott-Heron was my teacher. ‘Black Tea,’ I made that album for Gil Scott-Heron. He passed before he could hear, but in my head, I made that for him.
“My brother, Jay Ivy, in Chicago,” she says, jumping topics, as she does with lightning speed, “who’s on the Grammy committee, we’re trying to get the Grammys to acknowledge a poetry and music category, because the spoken word category goes to books on tape, basically, which is great, and my new audiobook, ‘We Want Our Bodies Back,’ is coming out next month. That’s me reading my book on tape. It’s not the same thing, though, as me with Jon Dixon on keys and DeSean Jones on saxophone.”
Her other new project, which she is about to begin recording, is Jessica and the Guitars, a collection of duets with guitarists and singers.
“It’s kind of Joni Mitchell-ish,” she says. “It’s very hippie, an interchange of a poet and vocalist with guitars.”
For her trip to Pittsburgh, the focus is on the city and MLK and the Poetry Unplugged gig.
She expects “a packed house, hopefully, with a lot of energy” when she hooks up with poets Mahogany Browne and Ursula Rucker, who made her spoken-word debut in 1994 in her hometown Philadelphia and has worked with The Roots, 4hero and Jamaaladeen Tacuma, among others.
“She’s my Philly sister,” moore says of Rucker. “She’s quite gangster and she’s an amazing poet and activist, and I love her very much, and us two in the same room is really almost illegal. If you never
experienced poetry out loud, for me, it’s poetry with a lot of heart in it. We are an extension of our community. Mahogany would say the same thing about her own work. We don’t write around our community; we don’t write above it. We are an extension of it. I consider myself a child of the black arts movement, a child of the Harlem renaissance — metaphorical child, you know. Young, but still a student of that movement and walk in that same lineage.”
Like many of the other events happening this weekend, it will touch on the legacy of MLK while keeping its eye on the present and future.
“Yes, it’s Martin Luther King; yes, it’s Malcolm, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, all the things that got us to this place,” she says. “But we must talk about right now. We have to deal with the times of today. There are things happening in this country that are really tragic, in many ways. We’re fighting on so many levels, and poets — the ones that I roll with anyway — are at the heart of it, making sure we’re telling the correct story from the people’s perspective.”
It begins at 8 p.m. at 980 Liberty Ave. Tickets are $23.75; aacc-awc.org.
Let Freedom Sing
There are a number of other ways to remember the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. this weekend and on Monday.
The 13th annual Let Freedom Sing concerts are at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, 2001 Wylie Ave., Hill District, and then on Monday at 7 p.m. at Woodland Hills High School, Churchill.
Both concerts will feature the Heritage Gospel Chorale of Pittsburgh and the intergenerational interfaith MLK Festival Choir, conducted by Herbert Jones, the Heritage Gospel Chorale’s founding director. It comprises singers from Heritage Gospel Chorale along with choirs from
Avonworth High School, Pittsburgh CAPA, Ebenezer Baptist Church, The Lemington Chorale, Temple Sinai, Woodland Hills High School and the Greater Pittsburgh Unitarian Universalist Churches.
Adding some hip-hop to the occasion will be rappers from 1Hood Media: Jacquea Mae on Saturday and Vic Muthama on Monday.
“Unity and love are ideas that Dr. King stressed in his work, and we lift up these ideas in our singing,” Kris Rust, co-founder and producer of the event and music minister in the Unitarian Universalist Churches of Greater Pittsburgh, said in a statement. “For more than a decade, this concert series has been empowering all of us to come together through music and find unity and love in the face of segregation, economic injustice and racial tension.”
Admission is free with open seating, and monetary donations are accepted to benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. For info, go to www.letfreedomsing.net. Also see Freedom-SingPgh on Facebook or Twitter for more details.
MLK at Mattress Factory
The Mattress Factory, normally closed on Mondays, opens for its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration from 1 to 5 p.m.
There will be music by Wavy Bunch Sound, the duo of DJ Flipwave and DJ African Wolf, from Ghana and Haiti, respectively, playing Afro-Caribbean, zouk, reggae, dancehall, hip-hop and R&B music.
The hands-on activities for all ages include an “I Have a Dream”-scape collaborative mixed-media mural. Guests also can write a letter to someone who has inspired them at the Appreciation Station. There will be a cookie table and hot chocolate bar.
Admission is free at 500 Sampsonia Way, North Side; www.mattress.org.
Music and art in Greensburg
The Westmoreland Museum of American Art and BOOM Concepts present two days of musical performances and art making.
On Saturday at 2 p.m., Audio Archives: Pittsburgh Civil Rights Era is a 90-minute jazz concert at the museum featuring singer Anqwenique Wingfield, drummer Tom Wendt and keyboardist Howie Alexander. BOOM Concepts co-founder Thomas Agnew will join them to discuss how Pittsburgh musicians were involved, influenced and inspired by the sociopolitical issues of the civil rights era.
On Sunday at 1 p.m., the museum hosts artists, performers and a live DJ from 1Hood Media.
It’s at 221 N. Main St., Greensburg. Admission is free, but registration is encouraged at showclix.com.
History & Futurity
Kelly Strayhorn Theater celebrates MLK Day on Monday with History & Futurity, with noon activities hosted by community partners and a 1 p.m. program featuring the K Theater Dance Complex, The Funky Fly Project, Dreams of Hope, Balafon West African Dance Ensemble and more.
It runs until 3 p.m. at 5941 Penn Ave., East Liberty.
‘King for a Day’ and more
The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh on the North Side is hosting a number of events Monday. Doors open at 10 a.m., and events include “King for a Day,” where guests can stand at a podium and recite passages from King’s speeches; a four-hour webcast hosted by teens called “Streaming Justice,” which will feature music, conversation and listener calls on civil rights topics; and other art and music activities. Admission is free for members and children under 2 years old, $15 for adults and $13 for children and seniors; https://pittsburghkids.org.
Benefit concert
The 33rd annual Martin Luther King Benefit Concert, a benefit for the Duncan Porter Homeless Shelter, takes place at Howlers, 4509 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield, at 9 p.m. Friday with half-hour sets by The Liberty Tubes, Knauer Bros Big Band, Bingo Quixote, Go Dog Go, Alexei Plotnicov Band and Paul Labrise Band.
Donations accepted at the door; www.howlerspittsburgh.com.