Music has been an important part of my life since childhood. As a youngster, around five or six years old, I’d go with my dad to his band rehearsals. He sang lead in a group that did covers of records by Rick James, The Commodores, Kool and the Gang, and other artists within the spectrum of Soul and R&B. After that, my musical preferences changed, stagnated and changed, more. In 2000, I started listening to jazz, which paralleled my watching the Ken Burns documentary Jazz. This music affected me very differently than other genres on a physiological level. There’s significance in that statement because of the sacred continuity the music has had on my dispositional configurations; the music has been very entrancing over these 16 years, and also, transforming beginning in circa 2006 when I began listening while writing. I realized quickly that the music altered my perception and thus, my poetic language changed, as well. I began to hear the music on a level that even now, I have trouble articulating. The music changed my approach to the configurative dynamics of the poem; I began incorporating angular line structure and space to create rhythm to parallel the alliterative and prosodic elements that I hope create a musical language within the poems, also. A Love Supreme was one of the 1st two jazz albums I bought (Miles’ Kind of Blue was the other; I purchased them together). This album builds a bridge that reaches for the sacred within humanity, and speaks toward finding the interior of what’s good, —one can hear it in Coltrane’s playing. When my maternal granddad died, I was asked to write a poem for him. I listened to A Love Supreme on repeat until the poem was done. This album continues to be a favorite, and one I visit often when I need an emblem of sacred music to accompany the process of writing. 8) You have been a brother in the Southern Collective Experience since it began 10 years ago. Since its birth, and especially in its growth over the last two years, how do you see the group improving society's idea of "the artist"? What are some of your impressions of the group thus far? What are a few things that set it aside from other clubs, movements, or schools of thought? There’s clarity within the Experience from both a geographical context as well as in the importance of authentic approaches to art. Many in the group though, fall outside of the South, but we find identity within roots in music, language, etc. A kindness exists within those participating… and there’s a devotion to finding success as a whole as well as on an individualized basis. 9) When you think back on your childhood, what memories act as a constant place of peace and warmth? If you don't mind, tell us how those moments shaped you as an artist.
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