The Language of Defiance.

"When the rappers say `word' it is old. Our speech carries our whole existence."

The language of defiance of the oppressed Afro-American Nation today is referenced in our history, experience and the totality of our cultural storehouse -- the Gestalt of where we've been, what we've seen, heard, were told and used to know. I'm speaking of that storehouse, that warehouse that tells you where you're coming from, and likely where you're going.

This defiance began as "simple" contradiction, the dimension of reality created by being composed of opposites. The opposites represented symbolically by the two masks of drama -- the smile at the bottom of the world, the frown at the top. Is and ain't was the first contradiction. No hot without cold.

But slavery made the natural contradictions of our social and aesthetic perception, rationale and use of the world, antagonistic. For instance, blue was our favorite color in West Africa, Equiano tells us. Then we blew. Let the kings we still talk crazy about sell us to the ghost. So that Blues becomes a sadness, a strained mood of loss, like we say, "You blew, my man, that's why you so blue." Imperialism swallows our lives and our history, or registered experience. Tonto's history is the Lone Ranger's saddle bags.

Africans were socialized around the Arts. "We are a nation of poets and musicians," said Equiano. Worship or "wordship" was connected to music, to bring the spirit, the living breath of the world into us, to possess us. Africans wanted to "get happy" as part of their wordship, to get possessed with the spirit of everything, the all. The passion that ensued from the wordship, the good spell, or as the young W.E.B. Du Bois called it the "frenzy," is not incidental to our rituals, but the point. This was the good spell, the transcrossing over into the "promise land", a spiritual swoop into `heaven' of pure revelation! Not an imperialist invasion.

American language, like American culture, is a composite of Africa, Europe and Amerindian; but of the still ninety percent segregated condition of the Afro-American people, much of our African character still persists. My sister and I used to love our grandmother so much when she spoke because hers was some other speech. Similarly, Du Bois loved his grandmother singing. Do Bana Coba, Beneme Beneme to the tune of "You can shake it to the East and shake it to the West, but you know which one is best." Such language reached beyond us into the was, so we could be wholly here.

We are the oldest artists in the world. Wherever we are in the world, this is obvious. Slavery our disconnected consciousness leaves us destitute of our history and origins, this despite the fact that Michael Jackson sells 93 million copies of his album. Our language is co-opted the moment it spills from our lips. You might say "uptight" and the president has it in his mouth by the weekend, just as "We Shall Overcome" came out of Lyndon B. Johnson's and "Power to the People" came out of Nixon's.

Scat and BeBop have always impressed me as a black people trying to re-understand their ancient tongues. What the past laid on us, is interpreted in the now. We say "cook" and "smoke." We "get down" as we did in the Congo, touching our alma mater, the earth, terra. We "dig" by understanding.

"Rap" is as old as the African beating on a log like the one in which sailors keep their records, as old as the dictum that denied slaves drums because they were "rapping" to each other after hours, drumming up rhythmic resistance. When the rappers say "word," it is old. Our speech carries our whole existence.

Therefore, what we produce as art must constantly be renovated and reformed, for the same reason escaping slaves had to move from place to place, very quickly. You create New Orleans improvisation and big record companies call it "Dixieland," a profitable "cover." Joe Turner opens his mouth, and it comes out in Elvis Presley's bank account. He is "The King" as Fred Astaire is "The King" of the African dance known as tap. Rap, too, has had to undergo such negative B&H changes because megacorporations' cooptation. Likewise when they found out how to appropriate our poetic, they called it "language poetry" then "performance poetry," and their "discovery" made it "new." We are always on the go, trying to stay one step ahead.

Our language is of resistance because we are. If we were not, we would perish. As long as we are an oppressed nation, super-exploited, suffering the added torture of racism, it will continue to be. Our language rests on image, sound, meaning and metaphor that carries through as clear as the distinguished tones of the drums that spoke our resistance under slavery. Our struggle for liberation is found before songs and after spirit. We could add dances, poetry, every creative thing we do. These are the gifts which Du Bois called The Gifts of Black Folk.