Back in April, I performed a poem at Young Chicago Authors. Originally written in 2008, and originally recorded in 2009, this poem, "Manifesto," was a kind of response to what I saw at the time to be a consciousness shift coinciding with the election of America's first Black President. When I performed the poem this past April, five years into that Presidency, when the city that served as the spiritual and political center of Obama's rise to that elite office, it took on a new kind of meaning. So while it is by no means a manifesto of the contemporary movement of young artists of color in the city of Chicago, I believe the context in which it speaks relates to the same points of reference that the current moment does.
But enough of my talk. Watch the video and think on it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9toz6Ne_I80