Blog Archive

The Copestedics Song by Charles Honi Coles and Paul Branker

When you feel blue, the best thing to do is tell yourself to forget it. Laugh your cares away Tomorrow’s another day And Everything will be Copasetic. Never look down Chin up and don’t frown. Don’t let life get pathetic. Life’s a funny thing It’s really great when you sing, And Everything will be Copasetic. […]

VACCINATED by Jericho Brown.

I once saw Jazell Barbie RoyaleDo Whitney Houston so wellI got upset with myself for sneaking Past the cashier  After having been patted down. Security frisks you For nothing. They don’t believe in trouble. They don’t Imagine a gun or a blade, thoughSometimes they make you walk all the way back To the car with the weed you didn’t tuck well. No […]

Blind Boone’s Apparitions by Tyehimba Jess

John William Boone (1864-1927) world-renowned Ragtime Pianist

HIP HOP CHAZAL by Patricia Smith.

Gotta love
us brown girls, munching on fat, swinging blue hips,

decked out
in shells and splashes, Lawdie, bringing them woo hips.

As the
jukebox teases, watch my sistas throat the heartbreak,

inhaling
bassline, cracking backbone and singing thru hips.

Like
something boneless, we glide silent, seeping ‘tween floorboards,

wrapping
around the hims, and ooh wee, clinging like glue hips.

Engines
grinding, rotating, smokin’, gotta pull back some.

Natural
minds are lost at the mere sight of ringing true hips.

Gotta love

Death by Basketball by Frank X. Walker

Before and after school
he stood
on a milk crate
eyeballed the mirror
and only saw wayne turner
at tournament time

a third grader
just off the bus
barely four feet
off the ground
he dropped his books
sank a j’
from the top of the key
and heard the crowd roar
beat his man off the dribble
with a break yaneck
crossover
and slammed himself
on the cover of a box
of wheaties

he was out there
every night
under a street light
fighting through double picks
talking trash
to imaginary body checks
‘you can’t hold me fool’
fake right
‘this is my p

“ROSA PARKS” by OutKast

Ah ha, hush that fuss
Everybody move to the back of the bus
Do you wanna bump and slump with us
We the type of people make the club get crunk

Many a day has passed, the night has gone by
But still I find the time to put that bump off in your eye
Total chaos, for these playas, thought we was absent
We takin another route to represent the Dungeon Family
Like Great Day, me and my nigga decide to take the back way
We stabbing every city then we headed to that bat cave
A-T-L, Georgia, what we do for ya
Bull doggin hoes like them Georgetown Hoyas
Boy you sounding silly, thank my Brough

HERE COMES THE JUDGE by Pigmeat Markham

*Hear ye, hear ye
This court is now in session
His Honor, Judge Pigmeat Markham presidin
Hear ye, hear ye, the court of swing
It’s just about ready to do that thing
I don’t want no tears, I don’t want no lies
Above all, I don’t want no alibis
This Judge is hip, and that ain’t all
He’ll give you time if you’re big or small
All in line for this court is neat
Peace brother, here comes the Judge
Here comes the Judge
Everybody knows that he is the judge

Everybody near or far
I’m goin’ to Paris to stop this war
All those kids gotta listen to me
Because I am the judge and you can pl

Life-Long, Poor Browning by Anne Spencer.

Life-long, poor Browning never knew Virginia,
Or he’d not grieved in Florence for April sallies
Back to English gardens after Euclid’s linear:
Clipt yews, Pomander Walks, and preached alleys;

Primroses, prim indeed, in quiet ordered hedges,
Waterways, soberly, sedately enchanneled,
No thin riotous blade even among the sedges,
All the wild country-side tamely impaneled . .

THE BALLAD OF CASEY JONES by Wallace Saunders.

“Come, all you rounders, if you want to hear
The story told of a brave engineer;
Casey Jones was the rounder’s name,
A high right-wheeler of mighty fame.”
Of mighty fame, of mighty fame,
A high right-wheeler of mighty fame.
Casey pulled into the Memphis yard
Fed up, beat down and dog tired,
Another driver had called in sick,
Asking Casey to do a double trick.
Casey smiled, said, “I’m feelin’ fine,
Gonna ride that train to the end of the line.
There’s ridges and bridges, and hills to climb,
Got a head of steam and ahead of time.”
Ahead of time, ahead of time.

I’M YOUR HOOCHIE COOCHIE MAN by Willie Dixon.

The gypsy woman told my mother before I was born,
“You got a boy child comin’, gonna be a son of a gun”.
Gonna make pretty women jump and shout, then the world gonna know what it’s all about.
I’m him everybody knows I’m him.
I’m the hoochie coochie man, Everybody knows I’m him, I him.

I got a black cat bone; I got a mojo too,
I got the Johnny conkeroo, I’m gonna mess with you.
I’m gonna make you girls lead me by the hand,
Then the worlds gonna know, I’m that hoochie coochie man.
I’m him everybody knows I’m him.