By Button Poetry
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Jahman Hill, performing at the Black Arts Matter Festival.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:03
okay so in this poem dance moves are
00:07
bullets
00:07
locked and loaded into my skin see when
00:12
I was little Michael Jackson was my
00:14
favorite assassin no law of grabbity
00:17
abiding citizen could moonwalk survive
00:20
Huey Newton pop live Black Panther afro
00:22
pixie out smooth criminal we learned to
00:25
kill it on the dance floor put me in a
00:27
room full of these white folks and watch
00:29
me make a massacre cuz we do everything
00:33
you can’t like live this beautifully
00:36
take your rhythm legit and literally
00:38
break back and help but catch a beat or
00:40
body I’m a dance – my body rejects the
00:43
morgue zombies come watch me work
00:45
and I tell him this is just rehearsing
00:48
tell them ghosts we getting back at them
00:50
I’m bringing my ancestors back when this
00:52
booty or extended back trying to make it
00:55
clap is dancing dancing is learning to
00:59
love your body in the language of your
01:00
ancestors we move in the key of Melanie
01:04
strut sound like survival turn my body
01:07
to a jazz instrument better yet the
01:09
whole band when I bandy about all curves
01:12
and crack limbs dance like my hairdo
01:16
eccentric and ever curly formaldehyde
01:19
Fargo preserve these patterns passed
01:21
down from Hill to Hill she ascribed in
01:24
my blood are Juke moves for freedom
01:26
kinship in the form of getting free on
01:29
any track I dance lick shot pop lock
01:32
precision revision reverse I
01:34
get them they all dropped we live in the
01:36
Redrum it’s finished they’ll never they
01:37
never get it I isolate bodily autonomy I
01:41
gotta be posture a purpose don’t
01:45
question the authority of this dance we
01:47
own this so hold my reverence and
01:49
reverence where every two-step is a
01:51
shout a war-cry
01:52
my body talkin about X in its own rhythm
01:55
on its own terms
01:57
undercover and overstated vindicated
01:59
vernacular we waves of the Atlantic
02:02
ancestral Exorcist I dance like seance
02:05
rock like resurrection like rebirth toe
02:08
tap defibrillators dancing an unmarked
02:10
graves body speaking forgotten names
02:12
yeah y’all this body yapped like my life
02:14
depended on it
02:15
zap zippy pendulum in
02:17
of those pitted against me poetry in
02:19
motion I cut a rug in a cute cookout I
02:21
dance
02:22
infinite possibilities I smile some
02:24
leaves because I like this groove like I
02:26
like this body and I like like this body
02:28
so i’ma work it like I’m self-employed
02:32
and this black never clock out not
02:34
always on time but always on beat we
02:36
improvisational innovators and dancing
02:39
is learning to love your body in the
02:42
language of your ancestors so we dance
02:45
and we dance and we dance and we dance
02:50
and this is why we dance
02:58
[Applause]
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video