Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
FOR FULL CLIP WITH AUDIO, PLEASE CONTACT WPA. Imamu Amiri Baraka recites poem "We" (black unity); bouncing, lilting, stuttering, bebop, beat meter; crowd in Club Soul receives it warmly. Amiri Baraka recites poem "Snapshots of Everything." What we are is gestures of the master without space, without time.
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Funky "Soul!" opening credits, narrated by Gerry Blesdoe, layover audio of King Curtis & the Kingpins performing "Soul!" theme song.
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Ellis Haizlip interviews Imamu Amiri Baraka. Mr. Haizlip reads back jacket of Mr. Baraka's latest collection of poems. Mr. Baraka says he had a son Oct 6th, but has yet to name him. MCU collection of works by Amiri Baraka (aka Le Roi Jones): "Blues People", "Black Magic Poetry", "Home", "Black Spirits", "African Congress", "The Dutchman", "Four Black Revolutionary Plays", etc. Mr. Baraka says he started writing short stories in high school, poetry in college, continued writing through his army service. Mr. Baraka says he was under the influence of science fiction, Edgar Allen Poe & Richard Wright when he started writing in HS.
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Ellis Haizlip continues interviewing Imamu Amiri Baraka. Amiri Baraka says his shift from writing for theater, much like his shift to black nationalism, was sudden & yet it was also gradual. Mr. Baraka says "One of the terrible things about living in a metropolis like this is that so much of the so-called urbane influence is really slick Western degeneracy."
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Ellis Haizlip continues interviewing Imamu Amiri Baraka. Amiri Baraka recounts his experiences with fellow black nationalist Maulana Karenga & cites the influence of his Seven Principles of Kawaida. Mr. Baraka has the audience recite the Seven Principles of Kawaida with him (unity, self-determination, collective work & responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, faith). Ellis says he knows Amiri as a gentle man, yet he wonders what inspires the controversy surrounding him; Mr. Baraka replies it's b/c his ideas run counter to the white establishment, that it's difficult to find the middle ground in the U.S.
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Ellis Haizlip continues interviewing Imamu Amiri Baraka. Amiri Baraka says his family & his organization (Committee for Unified Newark) are deeply involved in the promotion of his Pan-African & Nationalist value system & ideas; "You can tell how revolutionary a people will be by how revolutionary their women are." Ellis Haizlip asks Amiri Baraka how drug addicts, homosexuals & single mothers fit into his organization; Mr. Baraka replies, "The things we have to do are in so many other directions that basically it is revolutionary for a black man & black woman to live together according to a black value system & raise a revolutionary family." Mr. Baraka pushes family values, only in a "revolutionary" context.
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Ellis Haizlip continues interviewing Imamu Amiri Baraka. Amiri Baraka discusses the low-income Kawaida Towers development project in Newark, New Jersey, and the (racial) controversy surrounding it. "We believe that the would-be revolutionary-- that some of what we do have to do has to be involved in providing alternative institutions, concrete manifestations of revolutionary philosophy. You cannot talk about education being incorrect unless you are either prepared to control those schools & make it correct or provide alternative independent black institutions." Amiri Baraka discusses the national dress suit he's wearing & the symbolism behind it.
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Ellis Haizlip continues interviewing Imamu Amiri Baraka. Amiri Baraka discusses the development of a Western team to participate in the All-African Games (sports); mentions that he's interested in getting Vince Matthews to participate. Ellis Haizlip asks where he gets the energy to do as much as he does; Amiri Baraka replies that maybe he has a lot of nervous energy; "Until we are a liberated people, there is not enough that you can do." "I know you work 8 hrs for white folks, but how many hours do you work to liberate yourself?"
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Ellis Haizlip continues interviewing Imamu Amiri Baraka. Amiri Baraka says: "We believe that we have to do what is necessary. I was telling somebody that I think the worst criticism of us is the stuff that remains to be done." "I have very little use for people who claim they are artists & that's their whole thing. Except for the Western aggrandizement of art as a kind of special freakishness, the artist is like any other person in the community. If he has some kind of talent, it has to be utilized to improve that community & improve that community. Otherwise he's like any other person that's jiving." "Big business controls Newark like they control everything else. The well-dressed killers that never see blood, that deal w/ people's lives over cocktails." "Community organizing has to do w/ organizing the community to maximize your economic & political power. That's what nationalism means."
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Ellis Haizlip continues interviewing Imamu Amiri Baraka. Amiri Baraka says drug use & abuse is a result of "being crushed by somebody else's values. It's absolute despair." "If we really thought about drugs the way they really are in the community, if we wanted to be as hard about drugs as we need to we would be shooting pushers in the street." "An elimination campaign. The cleaner the pusher, the quicker he needs to be offed. The cleaner they are, the further the way they are from being greasy junkies. All the fashionable ones need to be killed off first." Mr. Baraka says he welcomes help from those not living in the community: "Unity without uniformity. Operational unity." "We believe that black people in America have as many tribes as our brothers & sisters on the continent, so we have to learn how to de-tribalize ourselves, even while being tribed, to begin to work with each other to work toward larger goals."
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Ellis Haizlip continues interviewing Imamu Amiri Baraka. Amiri Baraka says "No organziation can survive w/o economic development. But what we are doing is not based on an artificial standard of living." Mr. Baraka says Jihad Press is meeting w/ other black-owned publishers. Mr. Haizlip says many contemporary black writers are merely imitating Mr. Baraka; Mr. Baraka replies it isn't good to imitate, even though all writers do so when starting out, Mr. Baraka admitting to imitating Richard Wright & John Coltrane; pushes the "revolutionary value system" again, saying it will affect the writer's voice & development. Ellis Haizlip thanks Amiri Baraka.
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
TLS/MSs seated studio audience comprised entirely of black men & women applauding. Soul! staffer Loretta Green, sitting in audience, asks the viewing audience to write for tickets. Address appear on screen.
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Imamu Amiri Baraka recites poem "The Spirit of Creation is Blackness."
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Imamu Amiri Baraka recites poem "Somebody's Slow is Another Body's Fast." C/As audience, including some children, listening, digging the word. Biting, ascerbic poetry. Equal parts beat & jive. Fantastic, absolutely fantastic.
Soul! # 306 "Baraka the Artist"
Closing credits over audience applauding Amiri Baraka. Manifests into standing ovation.