Short, But Meaningful

In 2007, I decided to send Toure', the author of "Never Drank The Kool-Aid and "Soul City", an email of the craft analysis I wrote for (my Darling) Diana's F&T class. Recently, I was going through some old emails and found what Toure' wrote back to me. Even though his response only consists of a few shabby sentences I think it's cool he actually wrote back.

Nov. 3rd
What I wrote:

Greetings,

A couple of semesters ago I read your collection of essays, "Never Drank The Kool-Aid" for a Form & Technique class in prose. The book was "dope" as the cool kids say. The essay about you fearing for yr life with Suge Knight was hilarious.

Anyway, I wanted to show you my craft analysis for the book with an emphasis on the essay "What's Inside Us Brotha." I love this one. I think it's important for you to see what an actual student thought of your work, yo. Enjoy--I hope.

A. K. Cole
Form & Technique
Diana Joseph 102606

Toure' – "What’s Inside Us, Brotha?" In his collection of essays, Never Drank the Kool-Aid, Toure—our modern day griot of Hip-Hop, our oral historian of an infectious culture that literally set both east and west coasts on fire in the early 80’s, when some dope rhymes over fly beats not only rocked the house, but banks accounts alike. The beginning years of this culture has always been a bit shady for me because I was an 80s baby, so at age five I didn’t know what Run-DMC meant when they said “It's Tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time—It's Tricky...it's Tricky (Tricky) Tricky (Tricky),” but I knew I liked it, and when my cousins would bust cardboard boxes down in the funeral home parking lot, and break-dance to “Crush groovin-body-movin,” I didn’t know how to do those moves, but I felt some sort of delicious-attraction. At that tender age, I knew 80s Hiphop had that energy that kept my ear to the speaker, and my eyes glued to the breakers contorting limbs.

In this collection of profiles and reflective essays, Toure gives readers a huge slice of Hiphop pie by examining these famed artists to uncover their true-self beyond their public persona. In the introduction, he explains the importance of listening to subjects in order to get them to tell him things he wouldn’t have thought to ask. The one thing he didn’t ask his subjects directly was the one thing they told him indirectly, by expressing the hunger, need and conviction of their life-stories—their “What’s Inside You(s), Brotha?” Toure struggled with this question and fought with himself to answer it. As a reader, this question speaks volumes because it challenges everything I thought I knew about myself.

In this essay, Toure lays himself on the chopping block for a decapitation of his three heads—you, I (me), and he. His reaction to this question, and the way he structured this essay to answer it is unique to him, but the stories of Biggie, Pac, 50, DMX, and even Caushun revealed their story, which is largely responsible for the art they create, created. The boxing metaphor in this essay reinforces Toure’s choice to write with shifting point of views. Here he’s fighting with the punching bag, Jack, past experiences that include a physical fight and mental regrets, and himself. The rotating P.O.V.’s, as a literary technique, allows Toure to see himself from the outside and inside, simultaneously during the fight. On a more global level, this question allows readers (if they really are reading) to examine themselves to find the source of what is driving them; what is making their yearning for public recognition, or familial recognition like fire in their loins. Like Toure, I hesitated to ask myself this question because I was afraid of what the answer would be, and I should have been—we all should be scared when seriously dissecting ourselves for the truth. This question is bigger than the obvious, I am Black, I am White, Woman, or Male—it’s about where you come from that made, and is constantly making you who you are.

You ache with the need to convince yourself
that you do exist in the real world
that you’re a part of all the sound and anguish,
and you strike out with your fists,
you curse and you swear
to make them recognize you.
-from Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison"

Nov. 23rd
What Toure' wrote back to me:
Thank you for sending that and for carefully reading my book! That was so nice.