By Button Poetry
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Porsha Olayiwola, performing at Icehouse in Minneapolis, MN.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:01
I want to privy you to a little secret
00:05
come close now good so what you need to
00:11
know is the electric slide is not a
00:15
dance
00:16
it’s a transmission code what I’m trying
00:21
to tell you it’s every time I need to
00:24
leave here every time I need to get to a
00:27
place that feels like my mama’s cooking
00:30
or my brothers cackle booming from soot
00:33
I sound The Gathering I bring out the
00:37
trumpets and the horns whenever I need
00:39
to shake this crisp [ __ ] dust settle in
00:43
my bones I turn my stereo up just the
00:47
other day so-and-so tells me he wants me
00:49
to teach him to move [ __ ] I can’t teach
00:51
style can’t learn blood to pound to a
00:54
drum pulse so slick and glide so free
00:59
it ain’t can’t teach him or nobody who
01:02
ain’t from where we’re from what’s
01:04
innate I mean man there is a place
01:06
I need to get to a grin I need to spread
01:11
a quaking of my foundation ungrounded
01:14
formal after the codes an impenetrable
01:18
thing how the slide is suave how the
01:22
count all for the take-off as the dip
01:24
low the count out the downswing
01:26
recollects our plot of land on this
01:29
earth picking a leg high Annie raised a
01:33
turn to the left is the way we know to
01:35
leave our massacre behind man the dance
01:39
floor is a square padlock you can’t
01:42
crack each space we take there is meant
01:45
for us to occupy each brethren is
01:47
attached to our sides our fronts our
01:50
back this pattern is a shield against
01:54
depression or oppression or hunger
01:57
hanging out of someone’s blue eyes our
02:00
bodies arrange a constellation and
02:03
memory of the boy who was slain with no
02:06
indictment for the guillotine girl who
02:08
went forgotten for the housing stacked
02:11
like the gut of the ship the dogs in the
02:14
otters the blast-off happens in sync and
02:17
our spirits rupture ceilings rear itch
02:21
all sacred secret originators of a beat
02:26
cascading the electric slide is how we
02:29
leave here is how we ascend this kinship
02:34
is how we get to a place named joy and
02:37
go home that’s blood history man ain’t
02:42
no teaching that
02:44
[Applause]
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This post was previously published on the Button Poetry channel on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video