Freestyle the Art of Rhyme (Screenshot 3)

The Good Life was packed—to bite line from De La Soul—The Good Life was darkly packed. American traditional values used to make it formally and explicitly illegal for Africans to come together in public. So the image at left from Freestyle—The Art of Rhyme has great value to me.

As a young poet of the 1990s in Los Angeles, I was effectively a street performer. A political boundary was drawn in my mind marked by Wilshire Boulevard. Public gatherings north of Wilshire Boulevard meant ‘fake shit’ (people who are not from California are free to pour on their stereotypes about people living in California in general and Los Angeles—especially Hollywood—in particular)—gatherings south of Wilshire meant a generous helping of darkly packed authenticity. But, of course, the people of the darker tone are free to sing lighter notes and stray from the bass as Icarus flies into the Sun.

As a writer, I was an outsider to the freestyle movement. But my respect for it lasts to this day. Poetry for me is an evolutionary or progressive process. Eventually the poet should journey through imitation and recitation and become an incarnation to speak poetically from the heart—without a script in the manner of a not-quite-holy prophet. The ‘authentic’ audiences south of Wilshire were interactive. There was the African call and response. When a Bryan Wilhite poem came from me to the audience, they had no reason whatsoever to conceal from me their opinion of it. I took this social support for granted and expected to spend the rest of my life in a progressive conversation with the community. I was wholly incorrect about this assumption.

It should go without saying that The Good Life is closed now. It was a family-owned business founded by a female and male in marriage. I see no replacement of this institution south of Wilshire. 5th Street Dick’s Coffee Company does come to mind but…

rasx()