After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: "Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God." Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads. And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.
-- Revelation 7:1-4 and 14:1-3
One hundred forty-four thousand are disciples. Poetry is Jesus. They uplift her. They betray her. They crucify her.
Finally, she is slain. But always she is resurrected.
The members of 144,000 are varying degrees and definitions of black beauty, of black love, of black rage and of black life. These people write poetry as though their very lives depend on its creation. They speak poetry as though alerting sleeping, would-be victims that a fire soon will engulf us.
These people want us all to wake up.
Black Is, Black Ain't
Wednesday nights at The Greenwich in Walnut Hills is another time, another place. Normally a hole for Jazz, the club transforms into an almost underground spot for the purposes of giving fledgling poets a venue to vent, create and congregate.
Outside on Peebles Corner, young and old black people hang out incessantly. They own the corners they occupy. They cross McMillan and Gilbert avenues arrogantly ignoring traffic, moving at their own paces and to their own rhythms.
There's poetry in their movements. Under the weathered awning that hides the door to The Greenwich from passers-by, several young, dreadlocked blacks congregate. Their activity mirrors that of the street lifers who have no idea that poetry springs beneath their feet.
It's Poetry Slam and Open Mic night at The Greenwich, and the gathering outside is akin to a pre-game huddle. Some recite poetry aloud to no one in particular. Others talk among themselves, punctuating stories with wild laughter. They pass bidis between them.
Inside, Clarence "Cabbage" Stephens looks as out of place as he probably is. Every Wednesday it never fails. Stephens -- nicknamed "Cabbage" for his uncanny resemblance to a black Cabbage Patch doll -- skulks around the bar and into the performance area, taking mental inventory of which poets are present and which ones are late.
Members of 144,000 straggle in, while other poets sign up for the slam or to read during the open microphone portion. Meanwhile, Greenwich regulars, like those of the fabled Cheers, occupy their favorite stools. They bark drink orders to bartenders "Two Penny" Kenny Jones and Mark "M to the Y" Yates.
Big, bald and bespectacled, Stephens manages 144,000 and is the organizer of the weekly poetry slams. He likes to start things on time. He's found, however, that poets are stereotypical artists and get there when they do.
Finally, the energy, the audience and the poets are sufficient to begin the readings and the slam. Poets exchange their final embraces with one another. The bidis are extinguished, and those who will listen, compete and read have taken their places behind the black velvet curtain in the darkened performance room.
Talk Up, Not Down
Obalaye, a founding member of 144,000, is normally the designated emcee of the slam and open mic. He's equal parts manic street preacher, stand-up comedian and tortured genius. He cajoles the audience into giving love to those who grab the microphone to spill their guts.
On this night, though, another founding member, Olufemi, takes over. Wearing a T-shirt, overalls and Erykah Badu-style head wrap, she keeps the night moving and keeps the poets from veering off into sex-filled tangents.
Adverse, another young poet who often reads and has entered the slam before, spins a synchronized, graphic tale about sexing a sista' down. Afterwards, Olufemi says, "Now, how many poetry spots can you go to and hear about ass and anger in, like, 20 minutes? Not many, I'm sure. Not in Cincinnati anyway." Quickly, she brings the night back to its intended purpose of enlightenment through the written and spoken word.
"Y'all send some energy and some love and some spirit to this brotha', 'cause he's fly," she says by way of introducing Obalaye, who serves this night to warm up the crowd.
"I love performing," his voice booms through the room. "I love being in front of people. I love art! Art cannot be contained, it cannot be censored, it can't be controlled."
His freestyle rant is in direct response to a minor controversy that broke out before he took a recent trip to Chicago to perform his poetry. Before the trip, Obalaye was about to take a sabbatical from performing. It seems his poetry, his manner of performance, his very essence were too much for those who took the stage after him. He says he'd been told on more than one occasion by other poets that they wouldn't follow him because he was "too strong" and his words were too abrasive.
"I want people to enjoy this shit because it's beautiful," he tells the audience. "Chicago did that to me because I was shutting up and I love to perform. I think Cincinnati needs to loosen the fuck up, y'all! Shake that shit off!"
And with that, he launches into "Egar," rage spelled backward. It began life as an assignment from other members of 144,000 to document police brutality. Long and fraught with emotions that climax throughout, it's his signature piece.
Egar (in part)
I'm egar
as fuck
because you won't
acknowledge your family tree
a tree that's so strong whose trunk is so long
and its roots stretch so low
planted in soil so rich
that if you stick your hands in
your nails will grow
in fact
from which you must extract
resources to make this fuckin' world go
don't you know
I'm egar?
As Obalaye recites, his dreadlocks brush against his forehead and his head bobs and weaves as though avoiding an invisible fist. He clutches the microphone with both hands like someone is trying to snatch it from his grasp. At the poem's intended high points, the audience erupts with applause. It sounds like fat being dropped into hot grease.
At the end of "Egar," there are yelps and finger snaps of approval.
Obalaye resumes his seat, morphing back into the funny, easygoing man everyone knows.
The only thing more amazing than Obalaye's work is the fact that he learned to read only seven years ago. What he writes, however, doesn't suffer from what he doesn't know.
Olufemi then introduces Khalid, a poet she says "blesses us every time."
He begins "Everyday" with a slowed beat box rhythm that subsides into humming. His subdued rapsingspeak is a perfect counterbalance to Obalaye's emotional journey. The accompanying drumming of Hezekiah Kenyatta is meaty and staccato, adding percussive punctuation marks to Khalid's words.
Next is Beverly Kidd, whose poetic moniker is BAK. She could be the mother of many of these poets, but on the microphone she's their colleague.
BAK, long a patron of The Greenwich and Yesterday's News (the late, lamented Main Street spot that once hosted poetry), is sassy in her delivery of "You Heard." Poetry, she says, is her every day.
You Heard (in part)
You heard that we are black and that we're
slaves,
you heard that we might be called that all of our days
you heard that they want to copy our ways my
behavior is not free and I want to get paid
if I want to call myself a nigger why should
that bother you
you heard they were complacent, passive and
nasty
kings and queens, breeders of big penises and big
asses
selling and giving away their valuable things
including their offspring
that they perceived unblessed because they
didn't marry the mothers of these babies
and they were sold into slavery
you heard we don't think it's fair and we don't
care
you have the freedom to go any place, anytime
and anywhere
you have problems but a solution always appears
you are always fighting and yet you have fear
and you continue to do the same things while
you consider my culture of people to be queer
because they keep thanking you for allowing
them to be here
against their will, second class citizens still
accepting your scandalous ideas
of your perfection and your superiority
your monetary mask of darkness
as a done deal in spite of God's word
you heard.
"Living every day is an experience," BAK says after reading. "Poetry is all I see. It's something you can document. It's something very loving to document what you see in a person."
She believes in poetry as a healing salve, a gift to the lost. "Maybe while they're trying to find themselves, they can read about themselves. I really love documenting my people. They're really working while people say they're lazy."
Through the curtain, Olufemi, 21, is about to begin "Proverbs," her signature piece. The early childhood care and education major at the University of Cincinnati is both wise and settled beyond her years.
Proverbs (in part)
Look to thine ownself
for mistakes
don't talk about her
weave
while your hair is fake
the wise man listens
while the fool speaks
so shut up talking
and practice what you preach
you call me
stupid
but you're scared to teach
Now
you tell me
who you're gonna reach
it takes a nation
to raise a seed
of course they can't spell we don't teach them
how to read.
Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery
Idrissa Ekudayo, the 24-year-old member of 144,000 known as I.E., is the pensive, subdued one in the group. Close your eyes during his performance and you'd swear you were in a black Baptist church during the devotional period when the deacons, on bent knees, moan spirituals and evoke forefathers in the name of God.
"The foolishness of preaching is what it is," he says. "I was going to be a preacher. I was an altar boy at church. I was the next pimp in line."
I.E. says he used to be a junior deacon at his church. The irony that much of his work balances his former self with his new self is not lost on him. His piece "Is" is a meditation on his reconciliation with and disappointment in Christianity.
"I was wounded," he says of the piece. "It's about the false teachings of religion, the lies of Christianity."
Like the others in 144,000, there is methodology to what I.E. does.
"Everything I do has a rhythm," he says. "People 'do' poetry. This is my lifestyle. I could die for this and this is what I have to do. It's basically teaching and preaching."
"As far as 144,000, we all play a role," Olufemi says of the members. "Each role is different but it's needed. I can't be mad all the time. I.E. is always mad. Obalaye is always mad. But me? I can't always be mad. It brings balance. My role could possibly be nurturing, and I kind of bring that to the group. A lot of times we get caught in being mad and we kind of lose our spirit."
So it is that 144,000 is a weird, newfangled and creative family, a 12-headed collective as close to The Beats and the Black Power Movement as Cincinnati perhaps will ever see.
They're a commune, really. Several of the 12 members have children, and many male members believe in and openly practice polygamy.
In his piece "Queen Assassins," I.E. asks: "Am I the crazy nigga you want?/If so, we can roll/If my women say yes/to taking you into/the fold."
"The way I look at black women is, if you have a team of black women, that's the best team you could have as opposed to black men," I.E. says by way of explaining his lifestyle. "It ain't nothing like the loyalty of a black woman."
In a society built on the foundation of sameness and constraints, the freedom birthed and nurtured by 144,000 can be unsettling.
"It's about freedom," I.E. says. "Beyond that, it's about knowing yourself. That's the revolution: Know thyself."
Few of them hold conventional jobs, yet they travel the world speaking their words and networking with other artists and poets. Several have self-published books. Those who are in town meet regularly to exchange ideas and to give one another writing assignments.
"This is like something that was supposed to be," Obalaye says of the 2-year-old group. "We call ourselves a congregation. When we started hooking up, we didn't have a name. We didn't just want to be a poetry group, we wanted to be a non-profit then we decided to be an artistic order.
"I think it's very important that we speak to the next generation -- not document it and hide it, but dispense it. It's a righteous order that we're putting down."
When asked about the origin of the group's name, Obalaye says, "Not just anyone will be able to walk in. Then we started reading the Bible about 144,000 and wondered if that suit us, because not everyone is a Christian in the group. We decided to stick with this name."
The group is close-knit and clannish without being exclusionary. The members try to perform publicly as much as possible, though the conservatism blighting Cincinnati has kept them from performing full-out at other poetry nights in town.
Where traditional black poets locally lean toward the black Hallmark vein -- all rhymey sometimey -- 144,000 are strictly intellects, bombing spots with oral tags and spraying audiences down with verbal graffiti.
In short, they don't always fit in.
Their Souls Have Grown Deep Like the Rivers
"That's the cold thing about 144,000," Obalaye says. "You got some deep thinkers. We're sick of hearing about the struggle. We got some people saying, 'The struggle will never die.' Oh yes it will, motherfucker! I'm sick of struggling. We're about to figure this shit out.
"Art is key. It's key to life. You'll be suffering."
For Olufemi, poetry is less a revolutionary flag and more a symbol of personal expression.
"Poetry has been my self-expression all my life," she says, "and I think that whatever I do, I'll always be a poet."
In her work, she's equally adept at criticizing black women for demonizing black men while taking black men to task for their shortcomings, perceived and real.
"As women, we get caught up in the way they treat us," she says. "Never mind what they ain't doin'. Get your shit together, then you can check him. We can't keep looking at (black men) to do for us. The more you do right, the less likely he is to do wrong."
I.E. just wants to move the crowd. Whether or not the crowd wants to be moved is irrelevant.
"That's why I do this," he says. "That's why it comes through me like it does. It moves me. It's for everybody. It's even for the motherfuckers that hate it. It's a dilemma. I'm asking you, 'What are you going to do?' Every person who walked out of here thought about something one of these poets said."
Olufemi agrees with the certainty, necessity and permanence of poetry.
"A poem lasts forever," she says. "A poem is timeless, timeless and priceless. Like Obalaye said, this is art, especially spoken word. You can't write it the way it's felt. To get up and perform it and have someone feel the same way you do about a thing is just wonderful. That's the best feeling in the world.
"It's better than sex. Sex is temporary. You'll always have your words."
This Is Madness
If there's anything that's divided the members of 144,000, it has been the concept of being managed by Cabbage. He's not an artist, nor does he pretend to be. Ask anyone and they'll tell you straight out he's all business.
He arranged the few sponsors for the poetry slam and even lined up a computer as first prize. The cover charge he once charged, however, rankled some and has since been dropped.
Left to their own devices, 144,000 would simply be preaching to the proverbial choir. It's Cabbage's job to help them spread the message. That's where the newly produced promotional video of the group comes in, as well as his attempts to line up shows in other cities as well as at UC.
"We were self-managed and we weren't getting shows," says Obalaye, who is Cabbage's cousin. "The business and the art are two different things. The money we put into producing CDs, books or whatever, there's a cost involved in that. He came in as my manager and I offered it to the group. I told him I needed somebody to look out for me."
Having a manager is perhaps the one way the real world seeps into the realm of 144,000. It's proof the group is not so insular after all.
"I'm cool with it," Olufemi says. "The idea of being managed, I'm fine with. There are a lot of decisions being made without input. He's not really necessary, but he helps."
Without placing direct blame, Olufemi says the advent of a manager has somehow helped 144,000 move slightly away from its original purpose and feel.
"We're loosing our base," she says. "We used to get together at least once a week, and we're not doing that anymore. Clarence is not to blame for that, but it's some of it. I dig him because he don't know shit about the art, but he's all about business. He's doing what a manager's supposed to do. He's getting a lot flack because there's not good enough communication between us. We're fucking up."
Maybe a little, but the words and the spirits -- collectively and independently -- survive as they always have. The mission of 144,000 is too important to be stifled by the seeming commercialization of what they create.
"This is harder than New York, because there's more at stake," Obalaye says. "This is the Underground Railroad, where you came to be free and where a motherfucker would come to take you back into slavery. This is some historic ground we're living on, and I know those spirits are still strong."
Speaking for himself yet echoing the sentiments of the others, Obalaye says all that remains and matters are the words and their creators -- artistic conservatism, infighting and commerce be damned.
"Every day of my life is different," he says. "Every day of my life is new, on the real. Any day I could be walking down the street and a conversation could change the entire course of my day.
"I'm a servant. I'm a real-life servant. If it gets too bad, I'll take a box and bust a poem on the square."
POETRY SLAM AND OPEN MIC NIGHT is every Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. at The Greenwich in Walnut Hills.
