Hustle and Flow: Music & Lyrics 5

Streaming from Cargo Coffee East Madison on Facebook Live

Our friend Charles Edward Payne brought us some killer spoken word last month, and we craved more! This time around tune in for some words and lyrics from these stellar poets and performers:

“Maya Jain is an amateur poet in the truest sense of the word: she turns phrases for the sheer love of it. Raised Catholic because her Hindu grandmother told her Jain father to trust, the first free verse Maya heard was the Mass, and the lyricism of liturgy has always surfaced in her work. Maya studied Theology and minored in Art at the University of Notre Dame, after which she brought her verses to a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Cajamarca, Peru, where the stanzas bubbled up within her like a brook and burst forth with searing song. Maya’s Spanish/English bilingualism and love of Peru influences her identity, but she is not Peruvian and does not claim to know the Latino or Latin American experience. She currently teaches Theology and Heritage Spanish in Milwaukee and, in true sui generis fashion, would like a laptop sticker that says, “Ask Me About Being a Biracial Asian Spanish Teacher.”

Jada Thompson (Blue~Jay) was born and raised in two very different cities, Memphis, TN, is their hometown, and they would say the same about Madison, WI. Growing up and discovering Maya Angelou taught them that they have a voice, while Def Jam Poetry’s influenced them to be the voice they wanted to hear as a child. Since grade school, they have been creating energizing performance art and using it to help people communicate effectively across their differences.

K.I.L.O. (Keep It Lesbian Only) Skit’Lz is a veteran hip-hop artist who has recently been awarded Hip-Hop Performer of the Year for the second year in a row at the 2020 Madison Area Music Awards. They dedicate their music to anyone who is facing living in the shadows of their truth.”