by Hazel Kight Witham
Four and one-half years ago on my first day at Venice High
DJ Danziger went and made me cry
mixing the story of ya’ll and your folks, ya’ll— young folks breaking free of the pain
of our criminal injustice system of shame
the one we’ve constructed on this unjust foundation
the cracked bedrock of this broke-from-the-get-go nation.
See, I thought I knew something of my own small prisons, tiny cages
but I did not know how far the real bars reached
till DJ Danziger and MC Friedman
showed up with your hard-carved words, and preached
and I watched, how those two slung prompts and promises and ya’ll spit bars about bars,
crafting lines about climbing up from the heartache of loved ones lost and hard things past
and so for me, POPS became the place to be every Wednesday, first in 120 then later in 1-3-7
In the Key of Love
where some new guy showed up to fill big shoes.
But the constant, beyond DJs and MCs and new guys and guest spots has always, always, been you
you, ya’ll who show up, carrying the silent stories of those we’ve forsaken, those we’ve forgot
but ya’ll— you all— you have not
you’ve resurrected them for us in your words, your lines, your stories reaching across all that time
served
in your words you serve those serving time, you bond with each other in the serving line, sit and break bread,
spin your words
break bars, break silence, break ignorance,
break me,
how ya’ll have broken me, week after week,
shattered me
into smallest pieces
so I may come back together stronger, wiser,
somehow more whole
piece by piece,
and isn’t that how peace is built? peace upon peace?
Ode to POPS
because since you’ve splintered me, shaken me,
made me understand, that ya’ll, that them, that really
I, You All, and Them, we are all Us.
we are all in these prisons, these cages, small and vast,
and we all must get each other
out.
together.
Visit Popstheclub, or find them on Twitter @popstheclub and on Facebook
Discover what POPS the Club is all about.
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Photo Credit: Getty Images