Tim'm West continues to inspire, provoke, nourish and stun.

Reviewed by David Jones

 

 

Over the MLK weekend, Tim'm T. West, celebrated author, poet and lecturer, added his own shout to the historic echoes reverberating around Washington DC with his new CD In Security: The Golden Error. Any follower of West is irretrievably spoiled; the mere presence of his name in any of his chosen media guarantees works of surpassing excellence and thunderous artistic weight. Although Mr. West's talent is nothing new to me, I was truly caught by surprise.
I have never heard a CD with such an astonishing opening sequence of music. Against the Grain, Walking Contradiction, Hit Song and Stutter contain more lyrical beauty in four songs than most so-called rappers manage to cram in an entire album.
There are other gems; F Word is his answer to all the proud queens wondering if there is a place for them in the struggle. The broad content of his artistic self education allows him to avoid the musical myopia of most rappers and instead of the same tired samples we hear in every other hit rap/r&b song, the ear is teased with ravishing melodies. One of the reasons West's work is so compelling is that he actually possesses a voice. In the rap field, where raspy, raggedy cat-like yowling and low-pitched dog growls pass for street cred, West's silken, manly baritone, perfectly projected, effortlessly produced, dripping both testosterone and a plaintive, bluesy vulnerability, is balm for sore ears. His Arkansas roots are evident in the floating, precise slowness of his delivery; he is out to be understood, not show off how fast he can spit out words. If he ever decided to quit the rap game and go into journalism, his warm, powerful, fatherly speaking tones would revive the title "the voice of God". Then there is his singing. As we say in the church, the man can sang. His sharp ear creates mahogany quartet chord backgrounds for his razor sharp lyrics to bounce off of and the effect is entrancing. He has at his command the traditional colors in the rapper's arsenal, anger, defiance, a pugnacious audacity, but I was delighted to hear, especially in the tracks You Tell Me and Old School a quality hip-hop abandoned long ago: unalloyed, almost child-like joy, a flow and melody that create a silvery "let's dance tonight" atmosphere. I mean really, when is the last time hip hop made you smile? Do I love this album? Hell Yeah. In the words of the interviewer in the first track, Get Into It Honey!

Tim'm West is one of the poetic art's most brilliant hopes, an artist of magisterial authority and tremendous coloristic range. In true 21rst century fashion, this interview was conducted via IM, perhaps the first interview this author ever did in that fashion. Read on and get a glimpse into a poet's heart.

David (2:25 PM): well hello

David (2:26 PM): nice to catch you

Tim'm West (2:26 PM): hello.

Tim'm West (2:26 PM): yeah...rare.

Tim'm West (2:26 PM): LOL

David (2:32 PM): your time is limited and precious, so let's get started...........how did you get the idea for front porch to begin with?

David (2:35 PM): from what I read, front porch seems like an extension of your didactic and altruistic impulses

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Born on October 30, 1981 in the Hough community of Cleveland, Ohio, Jessy Jamez is another soldier in the war for the right to self expression in the hip hop realm for the black LGBT community. His flow is not characterized by excessive speed; he has the precise diction of an elocution student and the forceful, deliberate manner of a general: Jessy Jamez has something to say, and unlike many rappers in hip-hop, means for you to hear and understand it.

Jamez has been immersed in the culture, language, artistic values and rhetorical gestures of hip-hop from his youth and he found in the genre's raw, freely expressed rage a way to combat oppression. "It was a combination of things that inspired me to rap," says Jamez. "The two artists I'd say had the biggest influence on me were KRS-One and 2Pac. KRS really brought intelligence into the game, showed that it was okay to be educated, to speak well.

They brought that element of it to the streets and Pac…" he pauses briefly, filled with reverence for the departed master. "Pac brought the rage. Hip hop is about being real and I found out I could be myself, express what I was feeling inside". If we lived in a perfect world, this writer wouldn't have to tell you who Jessy Jamez is.

At 16, he signed with his uncle's label. Later the label got a multi-million-dollar distribution deal, but the deal fell through and he was relegated to relative obscurity, in spite of his talent. "Greed just took over and things that should have happened didn't. That's all there is to it" says Jamez. This twist of fate allowed him to meet two individuals who would have a decisive impact on his life and art.

If things go as they should, the deceased get an honorable, dignified burial. What Donald Young got was a party. I cannot overstate the case; Young's transitory services were no dirge. The service had the tone of any Sunday morning service at Trinity United Church of Christ: lustrous, joyful and brilliant, with unalloyed power oozing from the walls.

For those unfamiliar with Donald Young, his influence could be gauged not merely from remarks made by his eminent pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, but by the sheer presence of family and Family---his fellow Trinitarians turned out in force, filling Trinity's huge edifice to the rafters and this writer believes the gay community, the church children of Chicago, made themselves known in grand style, in crisp, flawlessly ironed Sunday-go-to-meeting suits and swank furs. The majestic, animated Donald Young deserved no less.

Donald Young, teacher and choir director

Although he received no formal training, Young was a profound musician with an uncanny grasp of phrasing and choral texture. He knew when to stretch a piece and when to quit and his colleagues learned much from his dazzling showmanship and sovereign musical instincts; the young lady who did much of the conducting for the service bore the unmistakable stamp of Young's style.

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Donald Young, a vibrant, charismatic choir director at one of Chicago's largest open and affirming black congregations, Trinity United Church of Christ, was found shot to death this past Sunday in his home. Young,47, was a longtime member of Trinity's choir, initially singing bass and then moving up the ranks to become one of its most electrifying and popular directors.

He was also a faithful attendee at the conferences of the Gospel Music Workshop of America. The details about why and exactly how he died remain unclear; there is, however, one story that emerges with some semblance of clarity: a longtime choir member and a sometime visitor of the church, both in their early 20's, were dating and Donald became interested in the sometime visitor.

After the break-up of the choir member and the visitor, Young began to date the sometime member. In jealousy and anger, the choir member went to Donald's home and shot him. In an eerie twist of events, the choir member, who was trailed to the frequent Trinity visitor's home by police, questioned and released, sat in the audience the very same Sunday that Mr.Young's death was announced. Young was well liked and the announcement provoked a shocked gasp from the congregation.

A wake for Young will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at the church. A funeral service follows at 11 a.m.

View WGN News Report below:

The murder of Larry Bland shocks a community into solemn reflection.

The recent news of the untimely death of Larry Bland has rocked Chicago’s African-American gay community. “The secrecy is killing us”, says Father Juan Reed emphatically.

Father Juan is the pastor of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, an open and affirming congregation in the city’s Austin neighborhood. “This is why being out is so important. It’s the way we’re forced to hide in the shadows” says Father Reed flatly.

What is perhaps more disconcerting than the death itself is the lack of press Bland’s death has received in the local press. Fox News devoted less than 30 seconds to the story, yet the death of Kevin Clewer, a white gay man from Edgewater who died in parallel, if not exactly verbatim circumstances as the victim of murder at the hands of a man he took home, galvanized the Edgewater community and received several mentions in both the gay and mainstream press.

HIV educator and activist tugs at the heartstrings in his first published work.

A great conductor once said about the virtuoso cellist Jacqueline du Pre “If you possess no excesses in the bloom of youth, what will there be to pare away on the long road to maturity?”

In the matter of Rodney Lofton’s first outing as an author we may rephrase the question thus: If a new writer is capable of this level of rawness, emotional force and forthright vulnerability in his first outing, what will subsequent offerings disclose?

The majestic artist Tim'm West re-issues a rare jewel

Tim’m T. West’s luminous chapbook Bare, long out of print, has been recently expanded, rebound and re-issued by the much-lauded artist.

I must confess, Bare is a terribly difficult read, not because West has lost any of his extraordinary power as a master poetic spellbinder; his lyrics are as fluid and liquid as they have ever been; his coloristic range is still awesomely broad, his ability to reach long buried emotions and unearth long forgotten blood-memories intact.

The Poet-Oracle speaks in entrancing tones in a stunning follow up to Red Dirt Revival

The Fellowship, an organization of radically inclusive churches, holds its annual meeting at the Lincolnshire Marriott......

From June 27 to July 1 at the Lincolnshire Marriot, Dr. Yvette Flunder, internationally known gospel artist and presiding Bishop of The Fellowship, an organization of radically inclusive churches, held their annual meeting.

This writer was present and partook of some much needed spiritual nourishment.

We as SGL men must emphatically realize the sacredness of our ground of being....especially the gift of erotic love that marks us out as Adodi.....how holy the orgasm.

As SGL men, we are constantly fed a diet of repudiation. We are responsible for the spread of AIDS in the black community, the delinquency of young black males and the breakdown of the Black family among other things. This venom comes from within and without; from the dominant white power structure and from some of our own brothers who are being manipulated and used by it, but most deadly, a good measure of it comes from us, from our own minds and hearts.

My take on the "DL"...We are all black gay men in the same boat. Some of us have shipped out.......

The DL. No subject has occasioned more curiosity, rancor and heated debate in both the straight and gay African-American communities.

At one point, there were so many books on the subject that my local Barnes and Noble devoted a mini section, a section ladies and gentlemen, to the subject.

After reading books and articles on the subject, I feel compelled to have my say.