Obalaye Macharia inhales the truth and exhales verses. We must label them poetry because there's no word yet invented to describe their aspirations.
As a founding member of the artistic order, 144,000, Macharia has burned microphones across the city and country. Life in all its glory -- death, birth, racism, sex and the other intangibles -- are the usual suspects in his subject matter.
In doing so, he does not self-censor.
In doing so, he has been bounced from a number of local haunts wherein the proprietors were offended by his absence of a "Love Jones."
Finally, in 1999 Macharia tried to lay it down in Spoems, a printed rant and the Howl for Macharia's seed to read long after he's in the Old Poet's Home.
But to read his work is like eating at the Maisonette and washing it down with Kool-Aid. It's satisfying and familiar but the experience is skewed.
It's not the full-frontal assault of watching him live -- eyes closed, hands aloft, legs akimbo, the room dead silent as listeners try to see the words floating above his dreadlocked head.
"I'd rather have the CD because it's spoken. That's why it's called Spoems," he says over cups of honey-sweetened coffee.
Thank God, Allah and whomever else we worship for Spoems: Speak Hard and Spoems: Speak Easy, his long-awaited two-disc discourse on life in the universe. Not only have legions of 144,000 followers been waiting for the discs, but Macharia's been waiting for them himself.
"I've been trying to make this CD since the book," Macharia says. "I went around to every studio ... and motherfuckers gave me the big, 'See ya' later, alligator. You're gonna make this shit, but not in this studio. How much money you got?' "
Well, he had about $1,500, and he soon discovered it was more expensive to self-publish his book than it was to make a CD. Undeterred by the big blow-off from local engineers, he went about his business of writing and performing. He met noted R&B; producer Joel Davis during a Black History Month forum. Davis had success behind the boards with LeVert ("Casanova"), The Whispers and Stephanie Mills. The next day, Macharia met with organizers of a talent show. Davis was slated to be the musical director.
A staunch believer in fate, Macharia took two Davis references in as many days to mean they were meant to work together. He tracked Davis down who, although now a Gospel producer, agreed to work on the project. They went into the studio in May.
The discs will be released Oct. 20, with 1,000 recordings released on the first run.
Initially, Macharia didn't want to speak his verses to music.
"I don't like music to poetry, but I love what (Davis) did," he says. "His music is way too beautiful for my shit. I'm too raggedy for that. I'm a hood rat. It's digestible with the music."
He doesn't hear his words musically. Neither does he like the trend (some call it Flowetry) of spitting verses to music. Davis and Macharia agreed the poet would lay his verses down a cappella, and Davis would return to the studio to add music. It took three days to record the verses, some of which date back six years.
"He was, like, 'It's only poetry. Whaddya got, one-minute poems?' " Macharia says, mocking Davis. "I did most of Speak Easy first. It's no profanity. It's love. It's praise. The next day I did Speak Hard and I ripped it!"
If you're thinking this is some Rap Lite with a backbeat, you're dead wrong. However, it is not for the squeamish who think modern poetry by young black folks is concerned only with getting someone's sex, man-hating or pimp prowess.
" 'Who Am I?' is me asking the spirit of God and the spirit of the ancestors to come in and interpret my message because I cannot," he says.
For the uninitiated, Macharia's voice is preacherlike in its tone and wisdom. It's thunder. Listeners are commanded and directed. Physically he's gaunt and hairy like Gil-Scott Herron. His thoughts and ideas run toward the stratosphere like slam god Saul Williams and, like poet and performance artist Carl Hancock Rux, he owns the stage when he's on it.
Macharia says the recording of his material was imperative. April in Cincinnati gave his time in the studio in May a certain level of urgency.
"I told (Davis) it's necessary that we record this now because I wasn't sure if I was gonna make it through these riots," he says.
"Me and Kofi (144,000 poet) were out on these streets everyday. We live here, and we weren't about to go in the house (during curfews) so we had to get Maced and shot with rubber bullets 'cause we're not just poets, we're abolitionists," he says, his voice raised.
"We're trying to free our people."
For more information on Macharia, 144,000 or Spoems: Speak Hard and Spoems: Speak Easy, go to www.global144k.com
