ABSTRACT
On the eve of my birthday in 2011, I visited a gathering of Afro-diasporic literary and musical artists and the enthusiasts who follow them in the “chitlin’ circuit” of the Chicago underground spoken word and hip-hop scene. As I turned the corner of the establishment in which this aesthetic extravaganza took place, I caught a glance of a dynamic cypher of high-caliber lyrical improvisation. One of my crewmembers, Malakh El, commanded the attention of all observers of and contributors to this tightly connected sphere of brown bodies possessed by an energy that evades their abilities to comprehend it. I mentally prepared to approach the cypher, for it possessed a presence that I had not felt in almost ten years. Everyone present added to the dark, soulful underlying activity of the unscripted art that took place in this cauldron of bodies in a circle, each of our sun-darkened bodies lit by the full moon over us that loves us as we retrace our origins. Parking the car was the longest five minutes of my life, as every orifice on my flesh craved for the creative drug that was the cypher. I finally fit the car into the space as it fit like a perfect puzzle piece. “This is the first good cypher I’ve been in for a long ass time,” I think as my sprinter legs carry me to the spectacle. As I approached, I hear Malakh in the distance, casting linguistic alphabetical spells on every ear in range until we all were drunk by his wizardry to the point that his every wish was our command. I listened, caught the rhythm of the beat box, and interjected my own symphony of collections of voice inflections combined with style, swagger, and “unholy” words. It was liberating, as I wore my spirit on my sleeve, rhyming the passions that my soul hides from my mind, so I learn something of me every time I hear them. I felt as if I just had an eternal orgasm, consuming my hair follicles to my knees. I could go on now.
