We are back this month at Urban Flavas Grill & Bar, Kobil (Next to K1) Ojijo Road Parklands. As usual doors will be open from 8pm and the music and poetry jam will begin from 9pm to 11pm. We will have an afertparty thereafter with the Urban Flava Djs so feel free to hang out and mingle with the R&S crowd, we’d love to have you 🙂
Queen Sheba’s words
Poetry does not belong to you.
It was created before your great great grandmother
could wipe the tears of her first born son.
It was created before the campfires
and the rhythm of the drum.
It does not belong to you.
Poetry was written on dewdrops
and scribbled on flint rock.
Before slam judges could start their stopwatch.
Before you spent your nights wracking your brain
on how to get the highest score because
in last nights’ slam, your average score was a four.
Or which sex poem would get the chick
at tonight’s open mic to take off her clothes.
It does not belong to you.
Your rhythm was stolen from the tree branch
tapping against your pane right before the sky goes black
and you can smell the rain.
Your catchphrases were stolen from dozens games
as Hughes rolls over in his grave.
You fabricated your decision to ditch your education
and study BET because you thought
that a major record label was going to help you make it.
Your sense of struggle was waiting for
Sojourner to make it while you rolled up one to blaze it
and I had to write these lines to save you.
It does not belong to you.
Poetry belongs to young boys
pounding lunch table rhythms
while beat-boxing and free-styling.
Poetry belongs to the women
that are raising their children in a single parent home.
To busy to reach their goals, to have a man to call her own
and all the clothes that her hips have now outgrown.
As soon as she saw you walk off the stage,
she decided to spare her life because
compared to the power in the words you write,
she realized that a whole bottle of Oxycontin couldn’t change her life.
Not like you did tonight.
Poetry hangs hope in the wind
by loose strands of melodies carried in alto
by blue-haired church ladies,
sporadic cries of newborn babies,
and ladies trying to remain a lady while he walks away.
Poetry belongs in the ache in your great uncle’s back
as he beats old slave spirituals on chain gang Monday afternoons.
His face holds 13 years of pride,
knowing he’ll be home soon.
Poetry belongs to the unborn child’s heartbeat
as she places headphones over her belly
to pump Miles’ tunes through her womb.
Poetry belongs to the man that has to choose
between the bottle he holds close and the wife he’ll soon lose.
His two little girls try not to cry
as daddy whispers, “I’ll only be gone for a little while.”
Later on in his hotel room,
finds a crumbled up poem that you left behind,
changes his mind and tosses his bottle aside and goes home.
Poetry is the strength to know that we need each other to be complete.
Poetry does not belong to you.
It does not belong to me.
It was created before your great great grandmother
could wipe the tears of her first born son.
It was created before the campfires
and the rhythm of the drum.
By Queen Sheba
http://www.thequeensheba.org/
PSA! Rhythm &Spoken @Avalon Tavern on Thursday March1
Great music mix and open mic poetry plus a TRG (Thursday Rare Groove Afterparty).
Directions to Avalon Tavern on Riverside Drive off Waiyaki Way
What’s not to like about Nneka?
From her Nigerian accent to her eclectic style there is so much to like about Nneka Egbuna. Here she is doing what she does best and bringing the fire with her new single Soul Is Heavy.
This will also be the title of her new album, If you didn’t get to listen to her second album No Longer At Ease (Chinua Achebe shout out), which was an amazing body of work, check out the remix of the whole album by J Period a multi-cultural cross between Lagos and New York by way of Germany.
http://www.jperiod.com/nneka/
We are still hoping to get our hands on the first album, Victim of Truth.
Sizzling new song by Nina Ogot
The talented Ms Nina has been at it again and this time she adds a twist with some afro-pop, we love that she has not compromised on quality, Watch and enjoy. Wololo! it’s good!
Brand New Venue
Yes people, we have moved. You can now find us on March 15 at Skyluxx Lounge, Soin arcade, W
estlands. It will be a new experience we hope you will enjoy with a few new added highlights for the night.We have also changed the day to Tuesday and a few of you have voiced your concerns just the same way you did when we decided to start a poetry night on Friday, all we can say is change is good. See you there!
Below is a poem by Mstari Wa Nne, a poetry crew that will be performing tomorrow night…
Real Fake
by Mstari Wa Nne on Friday, March 11, 2011 at 7:04am
it is a materialistic…hedonistic world that we live in
where you are deemed cool by the money in your wallet
by the clothes you wear and the places you hang out
by the company you keep..by the neighborhood you live in
you try REAL hard putting up appearances…you live your life FAKE
maintaining an expensive lifestyle…trying to keep up with the Jones’
constantly in rent arrears..lacking bus fare…can’t pay the bills
but must be seen on the party scene…doing anything to fit in
dancing…not because you enjoy the music
but really out of the need to be seen
passing judgment on others yet you got your own flaws
with your many imperfections you think you are the epitome of perfection
you are not the sun…the world doesn’t revolve around you
you see..unlike the sun you do not radiate warmth and light
you are cold and dark to those you say are not in your class
you’ve got class…acting class..where they teach you how to fake it
to put up appearances..be pretentious…insincere…dishonest
take a long hard look at yourself…look at what you’ve become
manipulative…cold hearted…self centered
maybe if you humbled yourself…swallowed your pride
and got rid of your air of self importance and arrogance
got to see the world through the eyes of others
you would really say how you feel…
you would be open about your situation
you wouldn’t go through the motions
you wouldn’t be a REAL FAKE..
Album review: Liquideep — Fabrics of the Heart
There is nothing not to like about this album, and if you give it a listen you will find yourself having a new favourite song every week. Being relatively new to Kwaito- house or let’s call it South African house because The word Kwaito might be taken to mean that the music uses a lot of vernacular ( As I said I am quite new to it), anyway, being new to it means I was just jazzed by the amount of soul that resides in house music. Some people confuse house with techno but house is- at the risk of sounding cliche- deep. The purcussion the rhythm, the groovy way it moves you. So when I got my hands on the Fabrics of The Heart album I was expecting to like only a few songs. I first heard about the group after watching their interview on eTV, seeing the video to the song Alone and getting blown away. The album is a press play and keep on repeat type of album. You will definitely enjoy how they blended all the songs together so you can listen nonstop. The first song Angel is the perfect entree ( girl you must have broken wings from heaven you must have fell) while BBM will get you dancing something serious with a beat that is a throwback to Eddy Grant’s Give Me Hope Johanna.
Settle for less has that old school soul sound while they kept Synthetic vibes in for the hardcore house fans. They also threw in the Fairytale reprise which is a slow neosoul version of the original. I like the messages in the songs too, Dreams urges to keep pressing on (I wonder if i can work out to that song?). It’s an album that we will definitely be playing at Rhythm & Spoken.
Liquideep is made of singer songwriter and producer Jonathan ‘Ziyon’ Christian and producer DJ Thabo ‘Ryzor’ Shokgolo.
Check them out on their site: http://www.liquideep.com 
Thursday Thoughts and Inspiration…
Every month before we open the stage we give a brief on what R&S is about, as we grew and got to know our audience, it went unsaid because pretty much everyone understood the drill.
Sometimes we like to remind ourselves though, especially during times when the sound system crushes or rain and traffic delay everything or when the idea of what we are doing gets misunderstood.
http://blog.ted.com/2008/08/the_making_of_a.php.
Featured singer – Kaz
This month, our featured performer is Kaz, the talented singer/songwriter whose performance was so well received last time she was on the R&S stage, all available copies of her album Somin sold out that same night.
She has performed at various venues and as a poetry lover also hosted a series of events (An Artist, A singer, A Poet) at the Karen Country lodge. Listen to her song Mziki http://getmziki.com/beta/2009/04/03/mziki-kaz-getmziki-special-edition/
Project Heshima 