The Call: Still a Womyn

(The video above contains 3 young poets)

My niece's hop-hop (by E'mon McGee)

Is double Dutch and twee lee lee like a bumblebee
Patty cake and tender headed girls by the radio in window seats.
It's my oohs and ahhs. Sweet chapped lips on Sunday mornings
Fresh prince of clean air. Eve's bayou on the riverside
And female niggas more like lady. Holiday Inns on south Cicero
Hip-hop is drunken master in my mom's drunken dances
It runs a lot like Chicago and SWV in my house.
I find beats in bowls of cereal and kitchen sinks
Groan with me when I'm hungry or Pressed for time
When chances don't come as easily
In a home where music was my discipline.
The strongest sample of any artist made me cry.
I am the built from the beat.
I am a hop-hop root.
Walkmens always me running
Skating on riffs and runs like CD players and fresh batteries
College Dropout and stops by my locker
Going back to Cali on Chicago corners
I won't forget
Her graces were always said in a rhyme
Always sung in a rapping song.
We grew up on raps made into prayers
Before I ate food or went to sleep.
We grew up on singing raps
I won't forget.
Endowed a literature I speak
Was once spoken to
I live a theme song
A scheme of a black girl
Being nostalgic
Being beautiful
in Nike and Jordan
A ballerina in tube socks
Foot working, shuffling power
Through her toes and tongue.
Dancing to remixes of Ali speeches
And the truth. A vibe of cursive
And curses I know every cuss word
Every slang slanted word blended
in a conversation. I know a hip-hop
conversation. A converse I keep
At the bottom of my shoe.

Hopefully my face will be seen on MTV before my ass will.
Hopefully my face ain't too caked to be called beautiful or natural
Like Barbie before extensions or a face lift.
More like Minnie Riperton before Beyonce
30 seconds of ratchetness
We aren't classically trained
Taken through woods and wild willows.
Females daisy dukin
Cream shaking their money maker
But still broker than yesterday.

I still got hope saved in my back pockets for my niece.
She too camo faced in darkness
Too bleached to know the difference between the sunrise and her skin
Too phased in being a hot mama
Forgets her edges slicked and greased and head nets and naps
Hopefully I won't see her ass on MTV when I wake up
Won't see goodies spilling out cookie jars and glasses of milk
It's been a while since she's been harvested in a cloud
Been too busy kicking dusk off her shoes
Feeling unwanted and unsatisfied in pleated pants and t shirts
She's been daisy dukin
Juking to new tunes MTV wakes her up to

Hip-hop, Please keep her
A ballerina in tube socks


Check out: The Response - More than Still a Womyn