Collard Green Music
Collard Green Music is the featured single with a unique video including renowned Triangle talent, from poet pugilist Kane Smego’s eponymous album, available now on all major streaming platforms.
We chat with the native emcee about processes behind this video collaboration and discuss his latest project.
Other than a song that slaps, what is "Collard Green Music?"
It's the title track to my most recent album of the same name. That is also a call back to the opening line from my verse on the NC anthem North Cack, released by G Yamazawa in 2017 featuring Joshua Gunn and myself. The full line from that verse is "New South staple, baby, Collard Green Music," which confronts the idea that the "Old (racist) South shall rise again."
Collard Green Music is about embracing the beautiful legacies of the region (food in this case), departing from a Southern identity based on racism, and celebrating a new generation of diverse artists redefining what the Southern identity is. It also pays homage to black culture, since both hip hop and collard greens are African American lifeways which thrived in spite of oppression, and a personal homage to a deep mentor and second father figure to me, Burly Page. You can see Page on the album cover teaching me to cut and cook collard greens as a kid.
As a white artist in hip hop, I think it is especially important to honor the histories of the people from which this beautiful culture came. On a playful tip, Collard Green Music is that good shit that you can't get enough of so you gotta make two plates!
What was it like working with Jeghetto and being made into a cardboard character?
Super fun and super organic! I originally had the idea to create imagery of a band of youth musicians playing cardboard instruments and shared the idea with Tarish, aka Jeghetto, and director Saleem Reshamwala. Jeghetto had the idea to incorporate a mask as well, and, when we saw it, the idea of building out an entire cardboard world developed. Tarish and I have known each other for over a decade, and first met at an open mic night that used to happen at this spot called Mansion on Franklin St. We had cyphered together, you know, shared raps and beatboxes in a circle outside after Mansion shows, and become friends and fans of each other's work, so it was amazing to finally collaborate on a project together. Really an honor!
You’re a Durham native who has been LA living. How does hip hop compare or contrast from the East to West coast?
Stylistically and sonically they are different. From the beats and instruments, to sounds, to the cadences, flows, styles of lyricism, and even vocal delivery. And of course, there is a difference between Northeast, like NYC and Philly, and Southeast hubs like ATL, North Carolina, and Florida.
North Carolina is kind of unique because it has the Southern influence as well as the East coast influence from the hip hop Mecca of NYC, so stylistically, it has depth and diversity among its artists.
How does your background teaching poetry translate to songwriting and the world of hip hop?
It actually translated pretty naturally because I've always worked in both mediums. I was actually an emcee first, as I started writing raps when I was in the second grade. It was once I realized that rap was a kind of poetry, that I would turn in raps as my poem assignments for my classes, and started to make my own songs in middle and high school while also dabbling in battle rap.
When I was 19 years old, I reconnected with a friend of mine, CJ Suitt, and my high school English teacher Michael Irwin. Irwin organized a youth team of spoken word poets that he took to participate in the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam. I saw CJ and some other poets perform their spoken word pieces and realized this was a form I had essentially been doing for years- writing acapella raps when I had no beats, and sometimes writing poems that didn't rhyme for school projects- so I was naturally drawn to it. They asked me to join the youth team going to compete next year, so I really started to experiment more with poetry beyond just emceeing or rap. Those events opened up a lot of new doors for me, allowing me to tour and travel the country and later, other parts of the world.
I continued writing songs as well, releasing a hybrid album with half poems and half songs back in 2010, and then my first full length hip hop album in 2014. I began experimenting with blurring the lines of poetry and rap during those years, and in 2018 completed my one-man show, Temples of Lung and Air, a work of hip hop theatre that premiered at Playmakers in 2018.
Also, another factor that kept me building my skills performing and teaching both poetry and emceeing/rap was my selection to the Next Level program in 2014. Next Level is a hip hop and cultural exchange program run by artists but funded by a federal grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. With Next Level, I went on a team with 3 other artists of other hip hop elements like dance, DJ-ing, & beatmaking to complete a 2.5 week residency comprised of workshops and live performances in Zimbabwe. I was the emceeing and rap teaching artist on that trip, which was really a transformative experience. Since then I was hired as a Site Manager for the program, and promoted to Associate Director two years ago.
I've had the chance to organize and run programs in Thailand, Brazil, Cambodia, Morocco, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Mongolia, Peru, and Bolivia, which has given me the chance to collaborate with and learn from some other amazing teaching artists all around the world. That really continued to grow my skill set and inspire me with new influences.
What's the biggest change you'd like to see in our world right now?
A revolutionary surge of altruism!
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