Smoke that FIRE

December 21st was the culmination of RMV on Rikers Island. Here are three simple lessons I learned- some advise to anyone who may want to pursue work with detained or incarcerated individuals:

• This work is extremely difficult not because of the inmates, but because of the staff who are responsible for them. 

• You cannot do this alone

• You need to keep your promises

I dealt with new obstacles each time I ventured over to Rikers: Sometimes there would be a completely different set of students than those who had signed up, sometimes none at all. There would always be a different programs officer who never knew what I was doing there. One time the circuit bus (that takes visitors to RMSC once inside Rikers) simply never came, and I had to turn around and go right back home. On that night it was about 26 degrees out. One day my group of students had apparently "thrown shit..like they threw feces at an officer's desk," and thus wasn't allowed to receive any programming. I was informed about that when I got there, and again had to turn around and go back home. And on this final culmination day, there were scheduling conflicts with the Stellar Adler group from NYU that was teaching acting, and I wasn't able to have the room or the students that I had hoped for. 

What I ended up with was a couple of young women whom I'd met on the very first day of introductions. I hadn't seen them in the month since then, but we remembered each other. The workshop was held in their dorm room, with the buzzing gates and droning TV's. With me were three professional musicians: two beatboxers (world champs!) and a virtuoso jazz guitarist. I was slightly embarrassed as to how little of the group actually showed up, and how long it took for any programs officer to realize what we were even doing there. Nevertheless, we proceeded with the work.

We started with an exercise called "Lily Padding," a simple and fun exercise to generate couplets, or sets of two lines that rhyme. We asked the two young women what they wanted to talk about and received the obvious answer: going home. So we riff'd on that. 

"What does home look like, sound like, smell like?"

"Who's there in your home? What are you gonna wear when you get home?"

"What is the first thing you're gonna do when you get home?

"...Take the most peaceful shit"

A simple and honest answer broke the ice, and we continued to write. Here's what we came up with:

My little sister won’t get off me
I need a little peace, I need my coffee
I can’t go out, I can’t get lit
till i do my business and take a peaceful shit
i’m bout to go outside, i’m bout to get stoned
bout to call my home girl on my cell phone
she got what i want, she got what i need
she got..hey! bag of weed
Smoke that fire

After that, Kaila and Mark layered in some genius beatboxing, and Yuto backed them up with a seductive guitar riff. We put it all together and sang it back. It was actually pretty hot, not gonna lie.

Our time was limited, and we had to leave shortly after. I left my email and promised the young women that I'd be available to work on the song when they got out, and that regardless I'd continue to build on it and make something out of it. 

That is the next step: keeping my promise.

I'm planning to work with other community centers (not like Rikers is a community center) and come up with songs, inviting more guest artists into the mix. At the end of everything, I plan to have a concert of all the music that was created, record it, and give it all back to the individuals that helped create it, crediting them as songwriters. 

They ask me how you doin I say betta than you

“They ask me how you doin I say betta than you”

A powerful mantra and another unexpected utterance from one the young women on Rikers Island. Last week I left almost convinced that life on the outside was worse off than here, where “we got meals 3 times a day, we got beds, shoes,” and most importantly an indomitable spirit that none other can match. The people in here don’t give up, in fact they continue to fight.

And the soundtrack that tends to accompany these battles is typically drowned in heavy bass, explosive percussion, marches, sirens and screams. I realized that my lesson plans, which included the soothing vocals of Jill Scott, would not go over well here. Even Erykah Badu was too “soft” for these folks. “I need more shoot em up bang bang,” said one of the young women as the security guard standing by shot us a look as if to say “Oh, you crazy kids.”

I asked what people wanted to listen to and was met with generic responses of rappers that I have never heard of like Young Nudy, obviously because I was out of touch. I wanted to give them a chance to hear the music they love, but at the same time challenge them to be open to music that contained more socially conscious lyrics, as opposed to repetitive spit about hoes and drugs and guns- not that there’s anything wrong with those things, but I wanted to find music that connected to larger issues in a smart and innovative way that really pushed the boundaries of the genre. That’s when we all landed on Kendrick Lamar. Everyone was in agreeance about Kendrick, no questions asked. It’s just like, an understood thing.

I spent the next week revisiting To Pimp A Butterfly, arguably one of the most important albums to have dropped in the last decade, if not the history of music. The mantra “we gon be alright” was heard throughout the Black Lives Matter movement and according to Kendrick, on the streets in parts of the world that he visited. His words resonated clearly here, and I could not have found a more appropriate source. His rhymes are grounded in direct references to religion, literature and the words of his enemies and idols. His album is crafted meticulously to reflect his storyline in the world, parallel to the image of a caterpillar who pimps his future butterfly self- essentially an allegory of humility and resilience, owning one’s history and soaring above all adversity. I printed out the poem found at the end of his album to bring in for the next workshop:

“The caterpillar is a prisoner to the streets that conceived it

Its only job is to eat or consume everything around it, in order to protect itself from this mad city

While consuming its environment the caterpillar begins to notice ways to survive

One thing it noticed is how much the world shuns him, but praises the butterfly

The butterfly represents the talent, the thoughtfulness, and the beauty within the caterpillar

But having a harsh outlook on life the caterpillar sees the butterfly as weak and figures out a way to pimp it to his own benefits

Already surrounded by this mad city the caterpillar goes to work on the cocoon which institutionalizes him

He can no longer see past his own thoughts

He’s trapped

When trapped inside these walls certain ideas take roots, such as going home, and bringing back new concepts to this mad city

The result?

Wings begin to emerge, breaking the cycle of feeling stagnant

Finally free, the butterfly sheds light on situations that the caterpillar never considered, ending the internal struggle

Although the butterfly and caterpillar are completely different, they are one and the same."

I wasn’t able to bring this in because when I arrived at Rikers, I found out that the programming for that week had been cancelled for my groups of young women. They had gotten into a fight and “threw shit.” One of them had thrown feces onto an officer’s desk. Now they weren’t able to have the privilege of arts programming for the week. I turned around and went home as the gate closed loudly behind me, shocked back into the reality of where I was.