“Say baby, can I be yo’ slave?” I’ve said it before that Darius Lovehall from Love Jones is the single reason why I wanted to perform poetry on stage. Larenz Tate was so cool and convincing that I swore I could do the same. I figured this Darius could use his stage presence to find his Nina Mosely. Eventually, Dwayne did get his Whitley.
I won’t give Darius all of the credit, however. From Run to LL, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Heavy D, Ice Cube Q-Tip, Snoop, Method Man, Inspectah Deck, 2Pac, Nas, Biggie, Black Thought, and Common all can lay claim to me wanting to pick up a mic and jump on stage to perform. They were the sculptors of an 18-yr-old Tarian and gave life to me shaking off the shyness and morphing into Streamofthought.
Honestly, I’ve probably been nervous every time I’ve performed…until I stepped to that mic. It’s as if there’s a magnetic force that draws you in and helps to purge everything that it can’t use before it draws out of you everything it can. The polarity between fear and triumph seem to be what forces you to that microphone and you have no choice but to give it all you’ve got.
I truly miss performing. Somehow, I went over 12 years between the last time I performed, which was my proposal to my then girlfriend and now wife, Zahra, and my performance at church on Easter this year. It was probably the wrong time to give it a test run, but I tell you, I felt comfortable and in control, which is a great feeling. Check out the post here and drop me a note to let me know what you think!