Unlocking Healing Through Art and Storytelling: MK Asante's Journey

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[00:00:46] Today is going to be an awesome, awesome conversation. MK Asante, how many of you guys are familiar with him and his work? All right, well MK Asante is a filmmaker. He's a musician. He's an activist. He's a writer. His career is about creativity.

[00:01:06] He's a professor at Morgan State University. And the thing that I love about his work, when I read it over a decade ago with his first book, is it is about the transformative power of words. It's about the transformative power of creativity and how it can impact

[00:01:23] you as therapy, as connecting family members, as really kind of becoming understanding your full and whole self. So this is going to be a fantastic conversation. I'm excited for him. I think that's enough of an intro. So I'm just going to have a brother

[00:01:42] come on in because his work stands for itself. So, MK, come on in brother. Appreciate you, man. Thank you so much. How you guys doing? Mic is right behind you. It should already be on. So again, let you guys know we

[00:01:59] are recording. So all of our events now are recorded live because we archived them and we released them as a podcast. So if the FBI is looking for you, if the police, DCPD is looking for you, might not want to speak too loud because I don't want your

[00:02:20] name to be out there or whatever. So thank you for at least trying to wrap up my I appreciate it. All right. So, yo man, like I was telling you, I don't know if you heard

[00:02:33] part of my intro. I missed the intro. But I'm very happy to be here. So I'm going to give this part because I think this is what's going to drive the conversation. Your first book,

[00:02:51] book. I can't remember the year that I read this book, but I think we had just launched our website, mahoganybooks.com. And I was going through a series of books that I was reading and it was for me one of the best years of reading that I've

[00:03:10] ever had. So I'd read Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Beautiful Struggle. I was another book remember. Just a quick little, you know, publishing note there. The Beautiful Struggle and Buck both have the same editor, black man by the name of Christopher Jackson at Random House.

[00:03:31] So shout out to Chris Jackson because part of the process I think of, you know, being a great editor is finding the voices and being able to help cultivate those voices. I'm glad you tied that together because, again, like I say, I don't know, if you're a reader,

[00:03:52] there are times in your life that you get to certain books and it's like a milestone. Like it just resonates with you. And when I was reading Buck, what I realized in that moment was like it was a reconfirmation that the path

[00:04:10] that I was on to become a bookstore owner and to make these type of books available and accessible across the country. Like that was my calling because what I felt from the book was something like just extremely personal that words,

[00:04:28] creativity, art can be transformative for a person. So that's my introduction to you. Absolutely. Yeah, that's a beautiful introduction and that's definitely you can probably tell from my work that I absolutely believe that to be true.

[00:04:46] And it's been true in my life. You know, I was thinking about that how, you know, it's not theoretical. You know what I mean? This is actually real. Like it's transformed my life. So, you know, I believe in it in a way

[00:05:00] that's beyond just the theoretical, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So from there, I asked this question. This is really to me almost the crux of the entire conversation is right. How do you feel? Because y'all this book, so I just finished reading it today and to be honest,

[00:05:19] I wish I had a finished a few days ago because I felt like I wanted more time to let it resonate with me as like just all that was there. I needed time just to sit with it and digest. So as I can just imagine

[00:05:36] what you put into it, right? Like how, like how do you feel? Well, I feel excellent. You know, I think whenever you whenever I finish a project, there is a sense of release and relief, you know, and also a sense of, you know, I think it was Dr.

[00:05:59] Mianjolo that said, you know, there's no greater agony than the untold story. You probably heard that before, you know. So for me, once I'm able to tell that story, there is a weight off, right? And then there's kind of another,

[00:06:16] not weight, but another part where people have to read it, you know, and you're kind of, you know, eager for people to read it and let you know what they think. But ultimately, you know, it's a heavy book to write.

[00:06:30] I love proverbs. When I say proverbs, I mean from all over the world, right? So when I'm not talking about a particular chapter in the Bible, I'm talking about proverbs in general, ancient wisdom from different parts

[00:06:46] of the world. So I think what I love about proverbs is they're short, but they're long. Right? Like a proverb would be so short, it'll say something like study the hole to carve the peg or, you know,

[00:07:00] free is expensive is a proverb. But if you think about these things and meditate on these things, they're incredibly deep. I'll give you another one. Recently I heard Mumia Abu Jamal, who was on death row in Philadelphia.

[00:07:17] Recently I heard him say something that was so short, but so long and so deep. And I think I'm saying that because the book isn't as long as Buck. Oh, this is a little shorter than Buck. Some people say, oh, it's not that long.

[00:07:33] Well, it's actually... But what Mumia said was, he said, think about this. He was talking to his students at University of Pennsylvania who were in the encampment. He said, you are being persecuted by the state for protesting genocide. And that's all he said. And in that,

[00:08:02] it was like reading a huge book, you know, and watching... I mean, it was so much in those... Just stating it just that way, is how he stated it. You know, the context, but also just, like I said,

[00:08:20] the simplicity of reducing it to that and what that just makes you think of is this what I love about language and words. They can trigger so much, even just, you know, you see those words put together in that way.

[00:08:36] Yeah. And I love the fact because it forces you to do what the words are supposed to do is to force you to reflect and be introspective. Yeah. Right? Like sometimes it's not about how much more you're saying or what you're saying, it's about what someone is saying

[00:08:51] and what you're now receiving from that and how does that then impact you? Right? What is the effect of those words now? Right? So no, I'm definitely... I do want... There was a major flex in here. And like I was...

[00:09:08] So part of this I was listening to was I was out working out or whatever and I was like, this dude... Like this is a flex. Like I was actually a little man... The dude talked about hanging out

[00:09:19] with Maya Angelou. I'm like, what? So I'm actually jumping ahead in the conversation. Let's just talk because you just mentioned their name. Let's talk about that because that is... And you've done work with her. Yeah. Yeah. So let me take you back to...

[00:09:39] Take you back to when I was a graduate student in LA, at UCLA and I was working on various film projects. I made a film called 500 Years Later. I don't know if you've seen that one, but I made that film

[00:09:53] and really loved it. I love the documentary film format. You know, I think if you even read my work, you can see I'm influenced by documentary film because even the first person accounts that you see, like the source documents and how people...

[00:10:09] You hear from people's actual voices, right? Not a summarization of what they said, but actual voices, layers, music, all these different things together to tell a story. So I thought of this idea at the time, this was in 2006 around maybe.

[00:10:34] The idea was, you know, how come there's no documentary? I was thinking about what don't we have films on? And honestly, there's a lot. There's just a lot. There are so many things that we don't have films about,

[00:10:45] books about, our stories. So I was like, what don't we have a film about? And one of the things that stood out to me was Kwanzaa, The Holiday. Because at the time, you know, The Holiday was started in 1966.

[00:10:58] So, you know, I think it was like coming up on it was 40 year anniversary or something at that time. And I'm like, there's no film that explains what it is. A lot of people don't know what it is and just where it comes from,

[00:11:10] the history. And it just so happened that when I was in college, I mean, in grad school at UCLA, I wasn't too far from the Us organization where Dr. Karanga had his organization, who's the founder of Kwanzaa.

[00:11:27] So and I would go to the Us organization and different other community centers in town and hear lectures, look at books and stuff like that. So I knew that, you know, this film hadn't been done and that I could interview him because he was, you know,

[00:11:43] so that was the idea. And I remember contacting Dr. Dr. Angelo by accident, on purpose, by accident, because I asked my my producing partner, I said, first of all, we were thinking about who could narrate the movie

[00:12:02] because we needed a narrator and we went to different ideas, you know, could Morgan Freeman do it? It's not Morgan. It's not really a Morgan Freeman thing. You know, who else could do this? You know, it's Tony. No, we need a voice. Who's the voice for this?

[00:12:18] Because it's not just a film about a holiday. It's actually a film about a people. Yeah. So who's the voice of the people? Right. Like who represents us the best? And Dr. Angelo was, you know, number one. So I didn't know her at the time.

[00:12:35] And I remember my producing partner, I said, can you give me Dr. Angelo's contact info for an agent? You know, he says, yeah. So he got the agent's phone number. So I remember this is 2006, about 2006, seven. I called the number

[00:12:53] and I had a pitch ready because, you know, I was used to talking to, you know, even at that time, used to talking to agents and different people, you know, to, hey, I'm doing the thing, you know, can we send it to Dr. Angelo?

[00:13:07] You know, I had it all ready. And the phone picks up and all I hear is hello. And I was like, oh. And it was just it was like, you know, like a movie, like, you know how the guy is nervous and he's talking to the girl,

[00:13:26] he's talking to the idol. It's just I was tripping up my words, you know. So. I got it out that look, I, you know, everything I wanted to say, I guess. And I remember it ended with her saying, you know, send me send me your proposal.

[00:13:46] And so we sent the proposal snail mail, because I was like, what's email? Can I, you know, she's she gave me the address. Winston Salem, baby. So sent it to North Carolina and. And, you know, continued to kind of work on different

[00:14:05] or work on different aspects of the film, mainly just stuff on the street. And I remember one day I was in Philly and my phone rang and it was a North Carolina number. And I didn't again wasn't really thinking that

[00:14:20] I was going to get a phone call from Dr. Angelo. And I answered the phone and I actually answered the phone. You know how you answer the phone when you don't know who it is? Oh, that little edge.

[00:14:30] You got that little edge to it because I don't know. So I'm like, hello? Like, you know, come here. So I'm like, hello? Aggressive and just unnecessary. And, you know, hello. And I'm like, oh, my God. And I completely did a one eighty,

[00:14:49] you know, in terms of my voice, I lost all the edge and hardness and just, you know, evaporated. And she said, not only will I help you with this project, she said she agreed on the phone.

[00:15:03] She said, I'll narrate it and I want to help you write it. And that was the beginning of our relationship. You know, I went to Winston-Salem. That was kind of my first introduction really to kind of made me fall in love with North to North Carolina.

[00:15:21] You know, it reminded me of the continent. It reminds me of the continent. Yeah. Now, I'm not talking about the politics or any of that. I'm talking about the land. So if you go out in rural North Carolina, you know, you're in places

[00:15:38] where there's a lot of green, very green. And especially when you see, you know, this how undeveloped some of it is and just how beautiful it is and how you find black folks down there living in a way that

[00:15:57] maybe you only read about, you know, that it still happened. And it's still, you know, and they're and they're some of the happy. Those are my neighbors, by the way. So I just say all that to say that she was my introduction to North Carolina.

[00:16:13] And whenever I'm in North Carolina, I always whenever I'm in near my area, I feel like how I feel in Ghana. Right. You know, that same the same sense of being overwhelmed by greenery and like I said, nature that hasn't really been to tamper with, you know,

[00:16:36] and people who are connected to the land, you know. So so anyway, so that's how we got started. We were made this film called The Black Candle, and it was a beautiful experience. And then when I went to write Buck, I was speaking at Wake Forest

[00:16:52] University and she summoned me to come to her house. And she really gave me some advice when writing Buck that. Changed my life, because at the time it might sound it might sound a little it might sound a little dramatic, but I was contemplating

[00:17:19] giving the advance back and telling the publisher, I can't do this for Buck. Yeah. I mean, I was seriously contemplating. I felt like I couldn't do it, you know. And sometimes in life, we feel like we're inadequate

[00:17:34] or we don't have the we're not good enough to do something, you know. And I think I was struggling with that. And she gave me some really powerful advice that day. And I finished it, obviously. And what did she say? That's a great question.

[00:17:51] I asked that. But I was like, do you think it's too personal? I'm one of them. No, no. She said, well, you know, she said actually like four things. Was it three or four? I'll just name all the things she said, I'm just going to go through

[00:18:06] a little and then I think it's three or four. But first thing she told me was tell the truth. She said, tell the truth. And said, just tell the truth. She said, she said, and she made a clarification, not a clarification, but a little note about that.

[00:18:23] She said, tell the truth. Because I asked her, I said, Dr. Angelou, I'm with the same publisher you are. I got this book deal and I don't think I could do it. I really don't. I haven't written one word.

[00:18:35] This was I had this contract six months ago is doing like three months. I ain't written a damn word. Like nothing has been written, like nothing. Zero words. So she's like, I'm sorry. I asked her, I said, you know what? Do you have any advice?

[00:18:49] And the advice she gave was the first thing she says. Tell the truth. She said, tell the truth. He said, and don't worry about the dates and the the the minutia. Don't worry about that because that's not really the truth. The truth is how you felt.

[00:19:08] The truth is what you believe, what you dream. The truth is how other people felt. You know, that's the truth. The emotional truth is what she was getting at. And it was very powerful point. She said, if you tell the truth, it's going to connect with folks from.

[00:19:26] To over there, and she was so right because when that book did come out and she when she said that to me, she actually said randomly, she said something like, I just remember she said Idaho. So she was like, it's going to connect from Philadelphia to Idaho.

[00:19:42] Like she knows naming random places, but Idaho stuck in my mind just because it's so random. And I'm like, Idaho. And then like fast forward a couple of years later, the book is out and I'm in God damn Idaho. You know what I'm saying?

[00:19:55] Oh, I'm in damn Idaho. You know, I ain't never been to Idaho. I'm in Idaho, you know, and this I remember this white lady come up to me in Idaho. She says, you know, you're the third black. I've been here 20, 25 years and you're the third black. It's not.

[00:20:14] Yeah, it was wild. So I said, OK, well, Dr. Angelo sent me here. But yes, so that was what she said. She said, tell the truth. The second thing she said is she quoted the poet Terrence, the Roman poet. She said, you're a human being.

[00:20:28] Nothing human is alien to you. So you belong everywhere. You know, on that. That's what she told me. You're a human being. Nothing human is alien to you. And the third thing, I'm trying to remember just one other thing, I think it's those three things.

[00:20:45] So the third thing is then we watched that just to tell you the actual story. So she told me those two things. Then. Someone brought out a cart like a TV cart, like back in school. Can't make this up.

[00:21:03] The man brought out a cart and we watched, especially did on B. On B.T. about her, like together, like she's like, let's watch this. So we watched it and it was beautiful. And then but she hadn't told me the last thing yet.

[00:21:16] So I'm like, you know, watching it, but I'm like trying to remember, like, OK, after we watch this, I got to, you know, and so we watched it. And then I was getting ready to leave and she told me the last thing

[00:21:28] because I was speaking at Wake Forest University. I hadn't seen her since the film. And so this was years later because I did the film came out in 2008 and the book came out in 2013. So and then another book came out in 2008 called It's Bigger Than Hip Hop.

[00:21:48] I was basically speaking at this university related to that book. So this was in 2011, 2012. And so she says to me, she says, charisma is when you go into the room, you bring your ancestors, you bring Fannie Lou Hamer,

[00:22:13] who I saw out there in the video, you know, you bring Pock, you know, you bring Harriet Tubman, you bring Ida B. Wells, you bring your grandmother and her hands and you bring every piece of art that's ever inspired you and all of that.

[00:22:29] You know, and that's you bring all of that in. And then people say you have charisma. So she said, you're speaking at Wake Forest tonight. I said, yes, Auntie Maya, I am, because she always said, Auntie Maya. I always called her Dr.

[00:22:42] Angelo and she always corrected me, Auntie Maya. And so I said, yes, Auntie Maya, I'm speaking at Wake Forest. She said, I can't go there tonight. I can't go there, but bring me with you. And that is like essentially the last thing she ever said to me because.

[00:23:03] I didn't see her after that again. And other than just, you know, saying bye and things like that, that was our last conversation is bring me with you. So that was that was really, really profound. So yeah, that was, you know, and then I asked Dr. Angelo.

[00:23:21] Oh, actually, no, there's one other thing that wasn't our last conversation, because when the book was finished, I asked her, Dr. Angelo, would you write a short blurb for me, like a sentence? And she wrote a letter and is, you know, DRMK and it's a letter about

[00:23:44] embracing who you are. It's a very powerful letter. And so I use some of it as a blurb for the book, but, you know, the letter, I talk about the letter and nephew as well. But yes, she wrote that letter and that was essentially the last thing

[00:24:00] that she says. So yeah. That, you know, that's that's fantastic. Like, I mean, that's and like you just you talked about this a little bit earlier about, you know, there's some things that are like proverbs that are short, but long lasting.

[00:24:17] And just hearing you say, take me with you is that thing that just sits. Yeah. Right. That's something that I think we can all remember or think about like internalized as everyone who has been a part of a life that's influenced you. Take me with you. Right. Yeah.

[00:24:35] That's fantastic. But this is also a great segue for us into the second second question I really have for you was like your choice. This is my words, your choice of weapon of creative nonfiction. Right. You talk about documentaries, memoirs,

[00:24:53] the way that you seem to harness this tool. Like so biographies and autobiographies and memoirs are like three different beasts. Right. Memoirs are like, again, your memory of a short span of time during this person's life versus the entire spans of a person's existence.

[00:25:17] So I love absolutely love memoirs. And what you've done with this one specifically, I find incredible because of. It's like a quilt, like all the things that you pull together your your family's letters, right. Your brother's lyrics, your nephew's lyrics, hip hop lyrics.

[00:25:45] You've created this quilt like book by pulling in not just your memories, not just your feelings, but. Makerspace offices is proud to sponsor this episode on the Mahogany Books podcast network. Makerspace is here to meet the needs of today's entrepreneurs, creatives and work from home professionals.

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[00:26:53] Well, it's our culture. And look at your dashiki. It is to me, I look at the dashiki and I think, well, there you go. I mean, it's the quilt. It's all you have. You're pulling from here in this case. It all comes together in cohesion.

[00:27:11] It doesn't look scattered. It looks like a story is telling a story and it's saying something, even though this coming for you, you have this color popping here and then it's so, you know, and it's all these things.

[00:27:24] And so but the quilt has been a powerful metaphor for me for all of my work. The African-American quilt, I talk about it even in the book. I mentioned it because that's really like the number one. I would say probably the strongest symbolic image

[00:27:39] that I use in thinking about art, black art. Basically, the quilt that the quilts that black women made during enslavement. There's four things about those quilts that stand out to me. The first is that they're resourceful. They create something out of nothing, apparently or seemingly right.

[00:28:04] Spend gold from wax. It's the maximization of minimal resources. That's what, you know, what did Pax say? Trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents, you know, that ability to transform something right and and something that seems like nothing. And then you make something out.

[00:28:24] So so essentially scraps to take scraps where other people throw away pieces of denim or cotton or whatever. And you are able to see something in that that is not throw away. That's number one. And I'll come back to that because that's actually just thought of something

[00:28:37] connected to a nephew. So that's one resourcefulness. The second thing is beauty and aesthetics. My mom was. She taught aesthetics. That's why this is my mom's bag. You know, my mom passed in twenty twenty one, but my mom. You know, her fundamental tenet of her life was aesthetics,

[00:28:59] the way that you walk, the way that you talk, the way that you sit, the way that you have your neck. Every she loved the black aesthetic, everything about black aesthetic. She loved she loved the way we walk. She loved the way we walk.

[00:29:12] She loved the way Obama walked and she loved the way the brothers. This is going to sound crazy, but she loved the way the brothers in the yard at the penitentiary walk because you see the art, the aesthetics and all of that, you know.

[00:29:25] So she was really into aesthetic regardless of the condition of where where it was. My mom used to talk about the my mom never cursed, but she would say. I do it in her voice. She would say, I just love the way that black people say, motherfucker,

[00:29:45] you know, and because and it's true, the aesthetics of it is phenomenal. You know, you can study that, you can teach a whole class about how we do that, you know, and what we could do it this way.

[00:29:54] And it means this we have a hundred different meanings for something like that. So she loved that. So aesthetics is the second thing. The quilt, even though we had minimal resources, was up to the highest aesthetic standards. The third thing about the quilt is that it was practical.

[00:30:11] It's not made to be behind a glass somewhere in a museum that no one ever sees. It's literally a piece of art that's functional. You know, like, you know, I'm born in Zimbabwe, so I always get cold. So need a quilt, you know, keeps you warm.

[00:30:29] So it literally has a functional aspect. And, you know, Baraka, who was another one of my mentors, I made Baraka, I made Baraka, you know, say your art has to be functional, you know, especially black art. If it doesn't have a function, then, you know. So there's that.

[00:30:46] And then the last thing that the black women did when they made those quilts is that they they would, you know, embed those symbols, those hidden meanings in them, those those codes, coded language, coded symbols. You know, so I don't know if you guys know that history, but,

[00:31:05] you know, black women would embed symbols that would to the naked eye. You may not know what it means, but if you understood, you would know that this is a map how to read to go to the nearest underground railroad, you know, or this is a map

[00:31:22] to read the stars or whatever it is. But this is about freedom. And it's coded just like the songs, you know. And so here you have black women making quilts that are. Resourceful, beautiful, functional and emancipatory. You know, they could actually get you free this art.

[00:31:46] And so for me, that's the highest level of art. What else could you do if you if you could hit? I mean, if you could hit those, then, you know, you know, that's when we win.

[00:32:00] When we as artists, I think when you can to me, it has to. For me to be moved, it's got to hit all those. I like I can like it if it just sounds good or if it's just aesthetic. Oh, yeah, that's cool.

[00:32:13] But for me to be moved, it's got to kind of have all of those things, you know, especially that last piece, you know what I mean? If it is not emancipatory in some way, then, you know, it's usually not transformative for me. You know? Yeah.

[00:32:30] So going into this book is was that your plan? Like did you? Or did you find yourself like in the middle of it and like, ah, well, that's my that's more like my foundation. So I wouldn't say it's my plan is what informs how I communicate

[00:32:50] and how I work, you know. So if I'm judging my own work, right? You know, it's how I'm looking at it, right? You know, is this emancipatory? Is this resourceful? Is this functional? Can can black kids use this in school? Can they use this in a practical situation?

[00:33:08] Is this helpful to young emcees and poets, you know? You know, and so that I think is more of a foundation about how I approach the work and how I judge my own work, really. You know, the standard at which I hold it to. OK. So.

[00:33:28] So when did you know that this was going to be the book? Because I'm like, I hope you guys are tracking with the questioning here and where we're going, because like this, it means a lot because if you've when you once you read this book

[00:33:43] and you take out of it what you've gotten, again, it's a very personal book. It's a lot of heart. And you talk about your foundation. So once you decided to tell this story about yourself, about your family, like when did it become OK?

[00:34:02] This has to be the story that I tell that, you know, in the in the fashion of a James Baldwin of writing to, you know, my nephews. Like, when did you know that was that was going to be the approach? Well, it's interesting.

[00:34:24] It wasn't this project has been, you know, every book. Sometimes people ask you questions like, how long did it take to write the book? It is always a funny question because there's usually like a couple answers. You know, my nephew, this just a kind of a quick recap.

[00:34:43] If you don't know the general premise of this story is I started writing this book when my nephew was in a coma. He was shot nine times. So that's the premise of the book is that that's when the book starts. He's in the hospital. That's the premise.

[00:34:58] So but my nephew, you know, he was shot when he was 18 years old and, you know, he was like he's been like a son to me and very close to me, you know, his whole life. Now, keep in mind, my nephew

[00:35:19] at this time when he's been shot and he's very close to me like a son had never met my brother, who's his father, who is the hero, one of the heroes of or the person I look up to in Buck. My previous book.

[00:35:34] So, you know, just to kind of set up the family dynamic, both of them are rappers. They both record in the same studio and have never met. So that studio is my studio in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. One wonderful sound studios where we just did yesterday.

[00:35:57] We just finished the new Monday night football anthem with Snoop. We did last year and now we did this year as well. But we do that, you know, it's a studio. We do music, post-production, film stuff, TV stuff.

[00:36:11] So we did the Spike Lee 2021 Spike Lee NBA finals at the studio. But my brother and my nephew recorded this studio. And so just understanding that dynamic, I think is. So when you talk about a story,

[00:36:31] this is a story that has been developing for a very long time. It's a story that in some senses I didn't want to tell this particular story. Right. When my nephew was born and my nephew was three and four and five

[00:36:44] and six and seven and eight and nine and ten. And we tell my brother, step up, become a, you know, be a dad, you know, be a father, your son is a gift. This is a miracle. You've got a, you know, black man.

[00:36:54] You can do this. You've got this, man. You've got to be in his life if you're not in his life. You know, all of these the most, you know, every speech you can imagine. Me, my mom, everybody. Right. So it's like, but.

[00:37:12] It didn't happen, you know, and so I think. So these stories take a long time in terms of they are brewing and developing. You have no way you don't know what the story how the story is going to go.

[00:37:31] Ultimately, I would love to write a different kind of story, you know, but that wasn't the story that. Happened and that also wasn't what was what was needed at the time when I was writing to my nephew,

[00:37:45] when my nephew got shot, I realized that I kept too many things from him. I kept a lot from my nephew about his dad. I think because it was sensitive and I didn't want to upset him.

[00:38:02] And, you know, my nephew used to ask questions when he was really young. Like, do you know my dad? And I'd be like, yeah, no, you know, my my his dad was my hero when I was young and his dad, even as an adult,

[00:38:15] was someone who I was close to and someone who I was trying to work on to become a, you know, we had a very complicated, challenging, difficult, lovely, beautiful relationship, all of that. And so I would talk to my brother, but it just, you know, it just,

[00:38:36] you know, and so a very complicated situation because I felt like ultimately I had to choose between them, you know, in a way. And, you know, so that's the that's the story is that it that took a long time to develop because it just didn't,

[00:38:55] you know, it wasn't always there. And then obviously when my nephew got shot, that added a whole other dimension to everything because now the fragility of his life is right before me. And I'm realizing that one of the reasons why he may have been shot

[00:39:16] is because he doesn't know this history. Like when you don't know that, let's say your mom had diabetes, then maybe you're not eating the right things because you don't know about this predisposition. So if you don't know what your father was into and what your people was into

[00:39:34] and what what some of the things, you know, then, you know, you had a disadvantage, you know, when you know, you can be aware and you could try to be prevent certain things. So I feel that I felt so I started writing to him

[00:39:50] when he was in a coma. It wasn't a book. It was just a letter. Yeah, it was a real letter, just a letter, just writing to him. Because when things happen in my life, you know, I think to write something, you know what I mean?

[00:40:04] That's the you know, I can't do anything. And so so it started out. As just a letter about his dad and repeating some of it, but that was in the hospital. But then later on, when I revisited that letter,

[00:40:22] that became something much bigger because I started to see within what I want to tell him, there's everything that I want to say about black art, black poetry, coded language, our ancestors, his father, his father's father, my mother, me,

[00:40:43] our whole history and how letters and language are embedded in our family DNA like Senegalese two strand twist, I think I say in the book. So I wanted to do all that, but it took a while to kind of realize that, OK, this is a book.

[00:41:01] But first, it was just a letter to my nephew. Yeah. So that was that's the thing that was, I think, like apparent and like amazing to me was that again, it's how you leaned into the transparency and all of that, because like you said,

[00:41:19] like this might not be the conversation or the story I want to tell about myself and my family because I'm exposing a lot. I'm dealing with whatever traumas and hurts that are there with the promises that you were hoping that weren't necessarily fulfilled.

[00:41:34] Like all of that, you're actually having to look in the mirror and address. But at some point, you get to a place where this is the story I have to tell. Yeah. And also following Buck, you know, which was a memoir too. I really do love memoir.

[00:41:57] And I think that's I talked about my mentor, Dr. Maya Angelou, you know, Auntie Maya. I think that's a influence from her as well. You know, she wrote a lot of memoirs. That was the majority of what she wrote.

[00:42:10] And I think that's, you know, when I think about life, sometimes I just think it doesn't get any more interesting, dynamic, crazy, wild than real life. Like real life is very interesting. I mean, to me, it's just it's all in real life. You know what I mean?

[00:42:32] You know, the things that happen in real life are like you. They can't make them up. They're so crazy. You know what I mean? So oftentimes I find myself dealing with real life and asking myself, if I wrote this in a novel, my editor would say,

[00:42:50] this isn't realistic. You have to make this more realistic. You know, real life is wild. Even what's happening now. Let me think about it. Think about what Moumiya said. Yeah. Your government is persecuting you for protesting genocide. That's real life. Like that's not that sounds like fiction.

[00:43:12] Like that's like out of some kind of like dystopian shit. Like what? Like it's crazy. You know what I mean? So so yes, a real life is. It's crazy, crazy, and in fiction. So here's a thing I want to read from your book.

[00:43:31] I have you comment on that. Again, crazier than fiction. Right. And this is early in the book. And this is an actual quote. And I love the voice you use, so I was at this part, I was listening to it on the audio book as well.

[00:43:51] So I love the voice that you use to do this. I don't know what it is. The slave coal piece is absolutely necessary to the safety of this province that all due care be taken to restrain Negroes from using or keeping of drums,

[00:44:08] which may call together or give sign or notice to one another of their wicked designs or in purposes. Slave code of South Carolina, Article 36 1740. This is what they were saying about our music. Right. This is something that is just secondary to us.

[00:44:30] And you chose to infuse this book with the lyrics of some of your favorite writers, but also your nephews and your brothers. So like. I just want to give you the floor for that, because I felt that was incredible. Yeah. Well, the musicality of this book is undeniable.

[00:44:51] Both, like I said, my nephew and my brother are emcees. And they're really emcees, you know, and the beautiful thing about this story partly, and I think part of the reason it drove me to write a book is because, you know, they were talking.

[00:45:06] I told you they record in the same studio, but they don't know each other. How weird? You know what I mean? That's wild. It's weird. It's crazy. Like you're recording in the same place that he we're not talking about a huge facility that has 100.

[00:45:20] We're talking about a little studio, you know what I mean? In the same booth, right? Using the same microphone, choosing the same damn beats. So this is like, OK, like, oh, my brother, he forgot his

[00:45:33] he forgot his his his notebook that had all his what the beast that he wanted. So he just went on the files and he just had heard a beat like and he just decided to rap on that beat.

[00:45:43] Well, literally, he know his son already has a song to that beat. You know what I mean? So this is like real shit that's happening, right? So recording in the same studio, but talking to each other in their rhymes, right?

[00:45:57] My brother got I mean, my nephew has a song and I talk about it in the thing because I listen to all my nephew's music and my nephew, you know, he says, what does he say? Take risk and prosper. I'm from the trenches. I never have a father.

[00:46:10] You know that that hurt me, that hit me, you know, he's rapping about not having a father in his life. And that father presence is my brother, you know, and that but he's he's also talking to my brother, you know, through that.

[00:46:27] And my brother in his lyrics is commenting on his son. My brother is rapping things like spent my prime doing time diesel optimists, no father figures, so the bullets they be popping us. That's what my brother said in his lyrics, you know, no father figures,

[00:46:51] so the bullets they be popping us. And then a few months later, your son is shot nine times. So, you know, you can't make this kind of stuff up. You know what I mean? This is real life. And, you know, too genius lyricist.

[00:47:05] And so so that's partly, you know, in Buck, I use a lot of lyrics from. You know, the way I do it is like Buck, I think probably starts in the mid 90s and then would end in like to the year 2000.

[00:47:21] So most of the lyrics are, you know, you know, people from back then, you know what I mean? That we were listening to it was always it's always chronological and always corresponds with the time. So part of my memory process is kind of going back

[00:47:37] and thinking of what we were listening to, finding the actual bars and all that. So Buck has a lot of you'll see Nas and Jay-Z and Noriega and people from that era. But with nephew, it's really just my brother and my nephew in terms of lyrics.

[00:47:55] There are maybe there's a section where I talk about manifestation. And so I have like lyrics from Tupac, Biggie, Proof, Big L and Nipsey Hussle all about how they were going to die. And I'm just talking about manifestation and how we have to be

[00:48:16] surgical and intentional about our words, you know, because we can manifest whatever we want. And, you know, I love Nipsey Hussle. You know, I love all those people I just named was incredible emcees, and some of my favorite emcees, you know.

[00:48:33] But they all spoke their death, you know, they spoke about death. And they even prophesy, you know, Nipsey Hussle say, you know, I probably die up in these streets, but I live on through my name. You know, I mean, you know, you can't say that, you know.

[00:48:47] And so I'm talking to my nephew about his lyrics because I'm listening to his lyrics on my wife when he got shot. I was in North Carolina. So I drove up to Philly and I listened to everything, you know, every all his music.

[00:48:58] And I listened intently because I'm trying to figure out is there anything I can hear in this music that might help me understand what's going on, why he's been shot, who what's going with his situation? And so I was listening more than the average.

[00:49:14] You know, it wasn't like a normal listen. It was like I'm listening for clues for something. Right. And one thing I'm noticing is. You know, you can't be saying that, you know, you can't just be you can't be talking about those things like that.

[00:49:31] You know, you can't put that in the air. You know what I mean? What do you think is going to come back? You want to make someone else's mama cry? You can't talk like that. You want to make people's you know.

[00:49:44] So you have to be very careful about what you're saying. You know, and this is so it's not obviously just to him. There's a lot of young emcees and lyricists and rappers that, you know, could benefit from being more intentional about what they what they want to manifest.

[00:50:00] I mean, it's ultimately it's about it's the power of words. Right. It's what we're choosing to put into the world. But it's also what we're inside has been created as seeds. Right. These thoughts, these ideas that we've meant that we've

[00:50:17] nurtured inside that we're now choosing to put into the world. And either is going to go it's going to benefit you. Right. Or it can create the effect from that can ultimately have just negative one. Right. So, yeah, I mean, it's you bring you bring you literally can

[00:50:39] bring all of that on to you, you know? And so I so that's part, you know, but sort of book. So music and then obviously with the history of black music and all of that is a part of it because I'm talking to my nephew.

[00:50:51] And like I said, first of all, there's another thing I want to say that's really important because I haven't said it yet. The book is a celebration of my nephew as well. I think it's important to say that because he was shot nine times

[00:51:07] not because of his lyrics. He was shot nine times because he was protecting his little cousins who were also out there. So they would have been shot, but they didn't get shot. He got shot. He got the bulk of the shots because he was protecting kids.

[00:51:23] So he had his back turned as he was protecting them. And he got a lot of shots in his back and his butt and his leg and all that. And so my nephew is a hero. And I think that's really important to stay, you know, he, you know,

[00:51:37] that that's come that's in the book, obviously. And it's just something to clarify that when I'm talking to him about the lyrics, it's not because I think that he brought this on himself through his lyrics. It's because I need him to be aware about this, you know,

[00:51:53] and I want to give him examples that he understands, you know, and I see, you know, in the music, I also use, you know, this book has one of the strongest anti-drug messages you'll ever hear because I also include my nephew's grandfather, who he didn't know.

[00:52:10] And I actually didn't know either. But my nephew's grandfather in 1971 started writing letters to God at the height of a heroin addiction. He was also a genius like my brother, like my nephew, lyric, lyric, just a wordsmith. But he wrote these letters to God and

[00:52:31] they were extraordinarily powerful and honest, the most honest you could ever write. I mean, you know, some one left one thing that always stuck out to me about the letters. And I weave them in, you know, like I said, they're interwoven into the narrative.

[00:52:46] But he has one where he says, you know, I'm 25 years old and my penis is a non-functioning part of my body, you know, because I don't want I have no he was with my mom at the time.

[00:52:58] My mom was one of the most gorgeous women in all of New York state. He was in Buffalo at the time. I mean, she was incredibly gorgeous. She was a dancer. My mom's a choreographer. Just a beautiful, beautiful woman inside and out. And so,

[00:53:15] you know, and this guy is talking about, you know, he had he was a he was a star basketball player. This guy, he was a smart brother. In fact, the reason why my mom said he said that what really won her over

[00:53:25] is he used to carry the New York Times like this when he walked around campus. He had a New York Times under his arm. And she just said, wow, that guy right there, you know, he got there.

[00:53:35] He said that's the kind of for all the brothers out there. Right there. Yeah, you know, I don't know what it is now because, you know, phones and stuff. I don't know how you how you convey that now.

[00:53:46] You know, I guess you could you read your book with you. You retweet some New York Times stuff. Book with you, you know, you sit down and you. Well, that's the other thing. But, you know, people used to put the book in the in the base

[00:53:57] to do that, actually, you know, walk around with the book in the back. You know what I mean? Malcolm X sticking out the job. But yes, so. Refresh me where we were exactly. We're talking about. Now I'm forgetting something about.

[00:54:18] So, oh, so Bob, so his letters to God. So he's you know, he said, look, my penis is a non-functional instrument. I have no desire for anything other than to get high. I mean, this is just I'm just giving you, you know,

[00:54:30] he talks about himself, about drugs in just such a real and honest way. And he wrote these letters all at the height of his, you know, when he was high. And so those letters are in the book and they help

[00:54:41] give an intergenerational perspective to what happened with my brother, because my brother's and I see her story actually doesn't start there. It starts earlier. And in order to understand that, you have to go back. And so this kind of like to in order to understand our story,

[00:54:57] you have to go back. You know, there's always you always have to go back. And that's the thing is and that's what I love is that again, there's and I just keep coming back to heart because I think that's

[00:55:08] I'm hoping like you guys really like feel that when I say it, like because there's like I never thought I'd be reading this many books, right? That's that's you know, it's an incredible thing. But when I was growing up,

[00:55:26] I had to learn to really to develop the love for reading books. It's something my mom worked with me a lot on as a kid. So now she's just like grins ear to ear because my mom is a huge book reader.

[00:55:40] But my mom was as well, you know, she really for newspapers that she read four newspapers a day. The New York the New York she she read the New York Times and the New York Post. Like I said, she appreciated high and low.

[00:55:54] She, you know, she'd do that. Then she would do the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. And, you know, and she and later on in life, she read about about a novel every week, you know,

[00:56:10] and shared a lot of books with me and was was really my hardest critic. You know, if you think. I mean, to me, my mom was just the heart, my hardest critic in a great way. She really she was about like I said, she was about aesthetics

[00:56:26] and she was about being thorough. You you can't not be thorough with my mom. You have to be on point. It has to be exceptional. It's just no other way around it. She wasn't going for it, you know, and she would tell you in a nice way.

[00:56:47] She would tell me, sweetheart, it's just not very good. And you just have to, you know. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. I mean, she said, tell you, it's just not very good. I used to read her poetry and that's what made me become a better poet

[00:57:01] because I had to read in front of my mom and she's also a choreographer, a dancer, she's traveled the world. So, you know, no, it's not cutting it right. You know, sweetheart, you need more emotion, you need, you know,

[00:57:15] and you don't even using any alliteration, you know, in this and that. You know, she just had she would just red pen everything. You know, she was she was really your first editor with your mom. Oh, first and you know, shout out to all my great editors.

[00:57:30] I've had some great editors, Monique at Saint Martins, Chris at Random House, Abby West at Armistead. But yeah, none of them are are messing with her. All right. Yeah. So so my point is, you know, when

[00:57:48] there's a book that you come across, like there's you read and you're reading your read and unfortunately, earlier this year, I've not had that many books I've been really impressed with. Right. I'm not going to name names. Talk to me later. I'll let you guys know. But

[00:58:04] but the last two books, I think now the book we read for book club and then this one has just put me on a new streak and sitting down with it again, from the very beginning, I was taken to it because and I can just you

[00:58:28] telling that story about your mom, about the emotion, right? About what you put into it, the thoroughness of it, the willingness to open yourself up. Right. What Auntie Maya would tell you about just tell the truth. Right. All those things about the often times often often

[00:58:44] often to city, whatever that way you got it. I have your life right shows up here and it's appreciative because I think what I'm going to tell people like like if for some first of all, like you said, is to less than 200 pages. I think it was 200. Yeah.

[00:59:02] So it's a short book. But if you don't take this book, read it for yourself, but read it with another young guy. Right. I don't care if it's your son, your nephew, a young cousin. And I would say a young woman or just any young person,

[00:59:19] because even though it's called nephew, you know, I think there's a tendency to think that maybe this is for young men or something. And it's really not, you know, it's a letter to my nephew. But the you know, the story and the and you know, my mom being

[00:59:38] my mom is, in my opinion, the central character of this book. She's the matriarch and she's the one that actually brings them. They do come together. And it's because of my mom. And you'll read that. But but I just think it's, you know, it's not I mean,

[00:59:53] I see why young boys, you know, young men because of, you know, my nephew. But I really do think it's inclusive. And the message isn't really gender. You know, it's not really for one. Yeah. You know. Right.

[01:00:07] And I appreciate you, you know, definitely lifting that up and correcting me on that, because I think the bottom line is all the things that you are touching on, like specifically that I, you know, what's your what? Your dad, Bob was talking about.

[01:00:20] Like now my yeah, I'm sorry, my my nephew's grandfather, my brother's dad. Because Bob isn't my dad. OK, Bob is my brother's dad. Exactly. Yeah. OK. So what Bob was talking about? I know it's a lot of it's complicated. It's complicated. Look.

[01:00:37] Let me just say one little thing. I come from a very big family. It's very hard enough to just, you know, my dad will ask me questions about the family and stuff. It's hard enough to keep track.

[01:00:47] And when I say big, you know, my dad is one of 16 children. You know, so I got lots of uncles and I got uncles. And it's normal in my family to have like about 10 kids. You know, my uncles and my aunt, they have, you know, I mean,

[01:00:59] we got people with 20 something kids, just one person. My uncle got 25 kids that we know about. So we got a lot of we got you. You know, somebody. Yes, I'm looking at you all like, you know, all any of y'all could be my cousins.

[01:01:18] I can't just be dating anybody. We got to do some background history first. Where are you from? So anyway, but yeah, so it's hard enough. So when you got that, you know, when you said Bob is my it's hard enough for me to keep track.

[01:01:33] So I get it. You know, keeping track of someone else's family. That's huge. You know. But yes. So Bob, you're talking about Bob. So Bob, because he talks about the despair like his. I don't know if despair is the right word, but his. Am I worthy? Yes.

[01:01:50] He actually says. This is a quote, and I mean, maybe I could just share share his his first letter, like a piece of his first letter so they can kind of understand. So this is his first letter, Bob's first letter written June 13th, 1971, which was a Sunday.

[01:02:12] Dear God, here's my situation as it stands now. Been in Buffalo five years this July, a little away from graduating, no income coming in other than cashing bad checks, borrowing from anybody and everybody, stealing from the gym, from my girl,

[01:02:28] stealing from people's rooms on campus. No job, no home. I've had the opportunity to make a lot of contacts that might be helpful later on in life, but most people probably only have negative memories about me.

[01:02:40] Thoughts about a guy who God has given a lot of ability and talent and who hasn't taken advantage of any of it. Just wasting his life away, really. All I've done is inject something into the veins of my body that gives me an excuse to cop out.

[01:02:54] All dope is to me is a means to an end. And that means to an end is self destruction. I really don't think that good things are supposed to happen to me. I don't think that I'm worthy, ugly duckling.

[01:03:08] I'm someone who knows he has ability, but who probably doesn't have the confidence and courage to put those abilities to the test. That's an example of what you were talking about. I mean, so that's this. This is a conversation that we have to have with our young kids.

[01:03:25] You know what I'm saying? Like we need to have with ourselves. You know what I'm saying? But this specifically to have this book at this time, it kicks off perfectly. Summer is here. They're out of school.

[01:03:39] This is a book that you can sit down and read with them. Yeah. And what I love about this particular book for me, you know, because whenever I do a project, there's usually something that I love about it. You know, some one.

[01:03:54] There's multiple aspects, but there's something that I really gravitate to. And for me, one of the things with this one is four part harmony. There's four voices in this book. There's my voice and I describe it. There's a sentence in this book where I describe.

[01:04:11] I'm doing really good at just opening up right to that. I mean, that's that's an incredible. You know, I didn't practice that. Anyway, I say all of our voices, Uzi's base, that's Uzi, my brother, Bob's tenor. That's his grandfather, my alto and Ena. Ena is my mom. Right.

[01:04:31] All of our voices, Uzi's base, Bob's tenor, my alto and Ena's soprano reach you now in four part harmony. So the book has all of our voices. You know, my mom's letters and journal entries are interwoven into the narrative. Bob's, obviously, and my brother's letters from prison

[01:04:54] as well as his lyrics are woven in here. So so it's a it is a it's a it's like a piece of music when you have different instruments, you know, like an like an orchestra. You know, you come in with the with you got the horns

[01:05:06] and you come in with the piano and the cymbals and it's all kind of going together. You know, I say neither bars nor bullets can stop love letters. You know, I share our words with you now so that you may learn, grow, connect, elevate and heal.

[01:05:22] Because ultimately this is about healing. He's in the hospital. We don't know if he's going to make it. I think that's the other part that you forget when you're reading. This is that he is in a coma and, you know, his prognosis is not good.

[01:05:35] He's been shot nine times, which, you know, all it takes is one shot to get killed. You know, so so there's that. And so healing is an important part of this story. His own healing, how he heals, you know, and how music is healing.

[01:05:54] You know, we talk about, you know, the God Apollo, and it wasn't just the God of medicine, but also the God of music. Right. And how ancient Egyptians had temples that were, you know, temples of music and vibration that facilitated healing. So, you know, that's all in here.

[01:06:12] This is awesome. So we're about to wrap up. I want to give you this last comment. What do you want to say about this book? What do you want people to get from it? Like just what is your your parting message for us here? My parting message.

[01:06:32] Well, you know, this book is definitely a result of my mantra, which is if you make an observation, you have an obligation. So you make an observation, you have an obligation. Observation, obligation. And so, you know, I also want to say free Palestine

[01:06:53] so and free Congo and, you know, free all political prisoners. And those are the kind of things that I would say. And, you know, but yeah, that's, you know, finishing this book with war going on and everything that genocide,

[01:07:08] you know, it really was difficult to write as well, you know, dealing with that happening as well, because, you know, when you are in tune with the universe and with other people and humanity, these things weigh on your spirit, you know.

[01:07:24] And so it's very difficult to, you know, be dealing with healing and death and all of this. And then to be having it go on right in front of you and to have your, you know, your government be so instrumental in it happening, you know, and

[01:07:45] and like like when we are said to be punished for even protesting it. So so that's, you know, that's what I would say. I would say one of the other things is one of the reasons why I write is to encourage other people to write,

[01:07:59] you know, so, you know, whatever you're working on or whatever story you have been putting off, you know, maybe now is the time to tell it, you know, because we do need your voice. So awesome. That's incredible to hear.

[01:08:12] Hey, guys, put your hands together for the incredible M.K. Asante. Thank you, DC. Discover a world where words ignite change. Tune in to Black Books Matter, the podcast where we celebrate the profound impact of African-American literature. Join us as we delve into iconic works and hidden gems,

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