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Monday, September 21, 2009
Arts / News Poets Jaycee and Bluz talk 'Will Spit 4 Sol-Food'
Posted By Anita Overcash on Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 3:34 PM
This Tuesday night, a spoken word event, dubbed "Will Spit 4 Sol-Food" will invade The Evening Muse. The show puts two popular Charlotte poets - Jaycee and Bluz – in the spotlight. In addition, Tarik Cranke & VKC will perform and back the word play with extra sounds. Tickets are $12. Doors at 7:30 p.m. The Evening Muse is located at 3227 N. Davidson St. For more information, call 704-376-3737 or 704-765-4131. For tickets, click here.
Creative Loafing spoke with both Jaycee and Bluz about the event and their background in poetry. Check out what they had to say below.
Creative Loafing: What brought on the title for Will Spit 4 Sol-Food?
Jaycee: Starting as poets, in the beginning, we really weren’t making any money. So we did do a lot of spitting, just to eat. We would go to cook outs or house parties to perform, but we weren’t getting paid in the beginning. So, [people would be like], “Well you can come out and get something to eat and drink,” and that’s how it started out.
Can you each tell me a little about your background with spoken word?
Bluz: It really started in college. I was writing and what not. Then, I had a little breakup and to deal with my feelings, I started writing. I started these kind of sexual pieces and the girls were responding the way I wanted them to. I met Jessica Care More, who did this poem called “Black Girl Juice,” and it completely changed the way that I looked at what I do. I wanted it to be less of a visual and for it to touch more people deeper than what I was doing, because she changed my heart and mind about how I looked at life. So after meeting her, literally overnight, I changed the way that I was writing and got a little bit deeper. From there, it was on. I began writing more, looking more at my culture and at life as a whole, as opposed to just one specific thing. So that’s pretty much my background. I got into SlamCharlotte and that’s what I have been doing and how I got as popular as I did.
Jaycee: I’ve always been a poet. From elementary to high school, I used to write poems to my girlfriend - I was more into love poetry. Then I moved to Charlotte in 2000 and Charlotte was kind of my turn around point. I decided to start writing again and sharing my poetry at karaoke places, open mics or whatever I could find. I started performing and people were really responding like crazy to my poetry, because I’m more of a story teller [with my poetry]. It always has a beginning and an end. I realized that people were really enjoying what I was doing and asking me to come to their cook outs and house parties. I met Bluz and a few more poets here in Charlotte and once we all met, we realized there was a movement for poetry. Seeing all the other poets going hard at it, and SlamCharlotte getting started, I began to promote poetry in the clubs, so we would have somewhere to perform – that’s what really kind of got me locked into it. Bluz was in SlamCharlotte and I was more in the clubs, trying to make sure that the poets would have somewhere to come to write, share and hone their skills.
Bluz: At that time, the two kind of meshed. The poets would be at Jaycee’s spot working on their stuff and making sure it was tight. Jaycee is a stickler for tightness, so before you can get on the mic there, you have to make sure your joints are tight. Then the by product of that tight work coming out of his productions would hit our SlamCharlotte stage, which would polish the work that they were doing on his stage. So, the poets were getting a constant work out between his venues and mine. The beauty about his venues is that it’s every week, so they have every week to make sure they got it right. Mine is once a month, so it’s like a one-shot type deal.
Tell me a little more about the event. Will you both be performing solo or together throughout the night?
Jaycee: It’s kind of going to go both ways. There will be times when he [Bluz] is just on stage, and times when I am just on stage, and times where we perform together. We actually have a few guest poets that we are going to bring in to join us as well, just to let everybody know that it’s not just us in the scene and that there’s more in Charlotte.
The band will play solo in the beginning and then they are going to back us up throughout the night. There will be times when we don’t have any music behind us, but then, of course, we will have a set that will be with the band as well.
Bluz in action:
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