- [Announcer] The Voodoo A Blues Poetry Opera a New Frontiers in the from Indiana University for Research.

- You can tell of Black people in the United That first movement That second movement from the North Eastern during the second The third movement great migration 1.2 million of us.

And then the fourth the second great Richard Wright, the novelist, he was among the 1.2 who left, who quit the South.

I got introduced to Richard and his novel, A Black Boy, and that for me was a I think he knew at that he wanted to be a writer, and his impulse is like Herman Melville, to people like William Faulkner, some of the great American So around the age of 14 or 15, he writes his first story.

It's a short story called The It was about a land speculator who cheated a widow I thought that would I thought it would What it chronicles is that trek out of Natchez, and then it actually his decade that he spent in So during this period, Richard Wright is dealing He's wondering if, like a lot of Black folks is has there been a bait because this was supposed to but they've been, they're encountering noisier kind of reality that when you strip and the bigness and the noise, it kind of resembles the (laid back jazz music) - Got to go.

Got to go and get gone for good.

This right now minute.

The air itself and the ghost of Mississippi, it's a merciless Going to leave this place.

Leave the bad times Gonna leave this hot white evil and its mistresses behind.

Saying goodbye to my people, saying bye-bye to clap boards and tiny spiral dust whenever we walk to some place.

The air is better up there.

We here hear, hear my train coming.

Here my train come.

(smooth jazz music) (tempo quickening) (vocalizing) - We from the land.

We from the land of Hard complexities of neon (imitating train rumbling) Cut-rate cocktail of running loose through and cell blocks and and cell blocks and and cell blocks of Delta blues displacement Doors of no return up the course of Northward bound, no money Canine teeth cut vicious.

Epidermis, dermis, delicate arteries and Frightful flowing centuries (mid tempo jazz music) We, we, we.

We going to be somebody, If we, once we, when we, sing slow Swing So low they can't hear you So low, the missionaries with canticles or curses.

Still they fear you.

They fear you in the country, meaning South.

Above the din and above the creak of gin Li'l half moons and stained Venetian red.

Above the squeaks of holy women.

The squawks of raucous, inhaling corn Angry Black sharecroppers who spent selfish hours swilling, swooning, swearing, memorizing quaint Old and crafting nowhere lawsuits, wildly vocal yo mama jokes.

(smooth jazz music) Wildly, wildly vocal exclusively to USDA executives Sharkskin diplomats useful handing us hard times Black beat farmers nursing nursing the non-harmony of outlawed fields songs, 'round bout midnight.

'Round 'bout midnight they hear the ghostly (imitating train rumbling) Time to cut for Cleveland.

(imitating train rumbling) Time to pack for Pittsburgh, then send for sister.

If we, once we, when we, and it don't stop.

This complexity of bone trails and riders of dirt roads becomes the enigma of asphalt, becomes the bull of Boston, (smooth jazz music) They gave us, they gave us, they gave us war Zoot suit riots and pop top Schlitz and late model They gave us victory Genocidal summers and empty stomachs that bloat.

Moats separating us from the friends, bad memories, Attitudes resting beneath raslin' with dis-ease.

Eczema of a history of We know some places and Got no connections or What people say, it ain't okay.

They still bother us.

Larceny and time in pieces, hard complexities of neon (imitating train rumbling) (energetic jazz music) The ghast, the ghast, the ghastly bellow of boats (imitating train rumbling) (imitating train braking) Who knew?

(soothing jazz music) - My people.

We are terribly similar We are me and I am thee.

Together we inhabit of truth and beauty beneath the sky that Up here as down there, we toil and drudge.

We work, we listen, we speak and are spoken to.

We pray and we wait.

We sing songs of rivers songs of trouble men, songs of trifling women.

(soothing jazz music) (mid-tempo jazz music) - A City speaks.

A city speaks.

A city speaks its dream tales, spiteful allegories that whistle and roar its gangrene streets its frigid children choke, its withered veins and dry bones like halcyon vapors, elastic, putrid.

(laid back jazz) A city speaks.

A city speaks its air and flame, in the corrugated and daughters frozen in time.

Deathly still, still as in death, mired in this space, dancing hot jig and hucklebuck.

Dancing habeas corpus and the rhythm of bone smoke on red clay and Survival.

Iron worms crawling fast, creak past sagging silver deities inch through coal black tunnels and smug temples of This city.

Its bowels, green politics, whorehouses, and hot chicken.

The dark corners presage when thin men immerse themselves in malt liquor and of caught catfish.

(smooth jazz music) Migration men.

Migration men with neck bones fattened on tripe and trouble.

Nighttime echoes stir alchemy, sand, and choruses of warm lust.

This urban Savannah bullets and bureaucracy, guns, and butter.

We the city and its pleurisy, we the city and undergirding spirit, flesh.

We the city, grit and ham bone people.

(smooth jazz music) Carpetbaggers.

Carpetbaggers run from A city speaks.

A city speaks its elixir yield of music, nets, and Red hot blues and from brown satin bellies and basements where warming bones, making greasy children golden.

So speaks a city, incredibly, (smooth jazz music) - Up here Whites pass for Reds.

Blacks cuss and in grunts and soft echoes.

We work this city's bowels, and find comfort in corners where dark cloud, colors dance and curl.

Up here home is like Eight families to a bathroom and work at the post office.

I find we have to We are confronted and we have not yet lived.

(soothing jazz music) Both down there and up here, we mark time by the and the quickness in their feet as they emerge from mills and the dinginess of and refineries.

They don't share crops up here.

And the cold is alive and bites.

We take long stares at our hands and count the lines as ancient as it is foreboding.

The kitchenette walls and the hallways haunted by Of the people before us.

The North is another We wrestle with the and the blues we We are them and they is we.

We take long stares and at the hands Where have we come to?

(mid-tempo jazz music) - That one, that one standing rooster, proud on the Avenue of Nickel-slick dude and tangerine shoes with I saw him see me see him, said he there's ugly and then there's what you is.

Are, or what we is, was, times you, times When he spoke, he said, I, we, remind him of America.

Me, us, her vicious song, her dialectic solemn unsexy, poison us to the touch, to the taste, to the mercury in She too sings.

America, the Virgin by still lit fires the vesper of dead tree spirits.

Virgin whore telling and try to forget me nots.

Chicago reminds me of the South.

Its Lugosi teeth full of dead Injuns and Negras and Crackas.

(mid-tempo jazz music) See there?

See, see, see, see, see how How it hollows out whole people?

Black, Brown, Beige, Check out how it and blinks as it's chewing.

Virgin whore spewing hate in Blinks and belches as it chews.

Guts all twisted.

It cranks out folks like North ain't nothing but North ain't nothing but just colder, less sticks, and more bricks and classifieds.

Just more callous like hearts, heads, and I know a dude named He got them, always gets them hauling from horse drawn wagon, up and down the South side of, South side side streets, singing strawberries, nice and sweet.

My price you can't beat.

Yeah, Chicago.

(mid-tempo jazz music) ♪ Strawberries ♪ ♪ Raspberries ♪ ♪ Nice and sweet ♪ ♪ Strawberries ♪ ♪ Raspberries ♪ ♪ Nice and sweet ♪ Chicago, same old blues.

Chicago, same old Yeah, Chicago, same old blues.

We breakin' up big breaking rocks and breaking rocks out 'Cause I been Hold it steady right There, I reckon that And that one, and that one, and that one over there with stingy brim, thick and thin, big smile, like a and the Juju jet tells me, he say, Hey, there's always Tells me, he say, they Just misery woebegone Cops and wops and we can't Cotton field, factory And we another notch in way up North Jim 13th floor of a tenement blues.

Not too Southern, not on the ocean, but still on the water blues.

♪ Just white folks ♪ You brought this misery ♪ ♪ To you they cling ♪ (mid-tempo jazz music) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we learned real quick.

We learned real quick that the bottom not no real like bottom, bottom.

We were caught and that we had to reach up And the defender and me and him and them and us.

And it had to really defend us like Leibowitz did Scottsboro.

Dandelions come up through We learned.

We learned that on the lips of spiritus mundi, limitless Northern expanse digesting Blacks like like blocks and blocks and cell new Negroes grinning.

Not, not winning, Grinning yet not winning.

Winning, no, not yet.

Take this hammer.

Take this hammer.

Take it to the captain.

Tell him we gone.

Tell him we gone.

Take this hammer.

Take it to the captain.

Tell him we gone.

And if he asked you tell him we was flying.

Tell him we was flying home.

(flowing jazz music) Lost, lost and found, we look round and round.

Marble stoops and murder books, simulacrum in the now, the In the DNA of the DOA here In the smoke tint glass and less Virgin whore about the working class, our Blackness itself.

A thing thingfully and timeless as horrific and beautiful as that flightless upright ancestor, seeking like us.

We did us.

We did and do.

We weary worried travelers, exchanging auction and Negro for Colored, and Colored for Black and blue.

And we are Black bodies even way up South.

Still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still, Still, still, still, We make music from the We make music.

We make music all day Yeah.

(soulful jazz music) Music.

♪ Strawberries ♪ ♪ Strawberries ♪ ♪ Raspberries ♪ ♪ Nice and sweet ♪ We make music from the We make music all day We make music.

We make music from the We make music all day We make music.

We make ♪ Strawberries ♪ We make music.

We make music to the ♪ Strawberries ♪ We make music to the We make music all day till till, till the making's done.

(smooth jazz music) (slower jazz music) - We are the fountains.

We are the lakes, the rivers, The Bethesda pool and pour sweet alms.

We gather and crystallize in a the genius of our Juju with which we speak We speak in tongues, in the softness of earth We speak a complex language that spring devouringly of right knowing.

We personify something We speak our truth (smooth jazz music) (upbeat jazz music) - Where V is the final velocity, and U the initial velocity, A, the acceleration, and S, the distance traveled there comes a crowd.

Almost always semi-circle, a delightful crescent moon orbit of small brown framed sisters, spinning arabesque on the feet rocking back and forth and forth to a music spun and technique.

No time for giggles No time for Good the sting of Bactine, No time to decode the wondering, wandering hands of play cousins.

Maybe he half Cherokee.

Maybe he like me like me.

No time, too late.

Her turn.

Get in.

Able Mabel, Mary be young, be gifted, ♪ Miss Mary Mack ♪ ♪ All dressed in black ♪ ♪ All dressed in black ♪ ♪ Miss Mary Mack ♪ ♪ All dressed in black ♪ ♪ Miss Mary Mack ♪ ♪ All dressed in black ♪ (upbeat jazz music) Where U, the initial velocity, where U, the initial velocity, they bounce, bounce, bounce, they bounce, bounce, bounce bewitchingly, daringly, one foot in, one foot out.

They count in ginger snaps.

Applique suspender skirts They speak the waggle dance Catch me if you can.

Cadence of diamond-spoked tease, the everywhere sun sermonizes and bastes the butter brown as radiance begets innocence, and innocence begets back flips in the crystal of their oil-sheen star shine.

Somewhere nearby, clothesline (upbeat jazz music) ♪ Miss Mary Mack ♪ ♪ All dressed in black ♪ ♪ Miss Mary Mack ♪ ♪ All dressed in black ♪ ♪ Miss Mary Mack ♪ ♪ All dressed in black, black ♪ Somewhere nearby, clothesline kidnapped, conscripted recruited for rope duty For this coterie, this quarter moon of who be turning, twitching, who be yearning, itching.

It be they turn, they time to cut wind.

They turn to the scratch ground.

They turn to incite sisterhood with wire and rope chants, pat their feet.

They cite, recite, migration folktales, fairytales, No time, too late, her turn.

Get in.

Able Mabel, Mary Be young, be gifted, ♪ All dressed in black ♪ ♪ Miss Mary Mack ♪ ♪ All dressed in black ♪ ♪ Miss Mary Mack ♪ ♪ All dressed in black ♪ - Where X, where X is unknown, and A, the acceleration.

S, the distance traveled.

They smile miles of smiles.

They smile, they turn.

Jump up, up, up, sing songs of dishes of pinks and greens They swing and jazz They smile, they turn, They've bend, break laws.

They cast curvilinear and teacakes upon water.

And then they And then they clap, clap, clap.

They count, count, count.

They clap, clap, clap.

They count, count, count.

They clap, clap, clap.

Then they dance.

Then they dance the of poly-rhythms, of rainbows.

They speak in tongues They speak homegirls They speak hoodoo They speak earthquakes They speak the then and dust tracks on roads.

The now of paper lies, here lies their They speak and sing the of twist-outs and box braids, flat irons and Caramel dark language of Black angels, they speak The righteous rhythm of A stitch or two and time, no time, too late, her turn.

Get in.

Able Mabel, Mary be young, be gifted, Be young, be gifted, Be Black, Black, Black.

Be young, be gifted, Be Black, Black, Black.

Be Black, Black, Black.

Be young, be gifted, Be young, be gifted, Be Black, Black, Black.

Be Black, Black, Black.

Be Black, Black, Black.

Be Black, Black, Black.

(pensive jazz music) - Time to go.

We have gotten what seen what we came to see.

We have been where However, we are still I fear we have ingested We have been told and of this existence, of what this place is, what it truly is.

We have not exchanged We have instead exchanged for daggers and javelins.

Our windows are Move on we must.

(lively jazz music) - Chicago is Sunday cheese grits garnished with pepper scrambled eggs, mayonnaise sandwiches, apple butter biscuits, and Chicago is knowing neighbors who know you plus the like the one eyed spooky wearing a frock keeping her eye on things.

Dee Dee Richards If we were having too much fun, or got too close to she was just mad.

She was just mad, because we were fresh with no concept late rent, with no concept of time spent with no time to genuflect taken with flash powder cameras.

Chicago.

(lively jazz music) Chicago is green dumpsters, oxidized dumpsters of discarded Funky emerald sentinels outside brown tenements.

Brown tenements housing Brown tenements housing spending good money on setting off and watching with a hypnotic as rats and roaches come Pesky POWs who shall never faint on the kitchen floor.

Surrender to a higher power, like a church-going auntie.

Chicago is a cream camouflaged with (lively jazz music) And warped, and warped, and warped wooden porches snake alleys that swallow Snake alleys that men with holes and shadowy bragging about how how they pitch pennies with him in front of the last Chicago is the gospel Winos with razor bumps, bragging about the who they never knew of, who they never knew as though philosophizing when truth be told, they just jiving.

Just jiving and side-winding, telling overripe lies up and down winding shedding the decayed and sunning themselves marking the perimeters Chicago.

(lively jazz music) Chicago.

Chicago is hot side streets.

Hot side streets with pressed deep into Yellow lines losing silently acquiescing of El Dorados and 442s.

Nine days times nine Old women with puffy ankles finishing half standing, stirring hot pots Chicago sees.

Chicago sees the innocence in orange short sets, holding Barbie court.

Little princesses in sizzling circles and cutthroat jump rope, soprano seances.

So out you may go, with the dirty, dirty dish rag on your left and right toe.

Then the cooling.

Then the cooling.

(smooth jazz music) The cooling, the by cool Black boys, native sons, liberating dishwater and bath creating a Bethesda The jagged edges professionally polished against raggedy strips Big Black boys tenaciously Little Black boys clad in corduroy pants streaking with knobby pockets of Belinda's and stolen air caps, traveling the trunks of Little Black boys, little Black boys, little Black boys of hydrant water and Pomade.

Water-logged little boys stretched out on sultry streets, of black street.

The amalgamation of cold parties with their senses as they dream bad dreams.

(smooth jazz music) As they dream, as they dream bad dreams of Good dreams of fist talking stuff through window sporting marble barrettes Good dreams of acting Elaborate back flips off in the corner lot next Little Ninja sleep deep soak up sun-soul in lost in a maze of under the gaze of a sipping cold Duck From his mama's front porch.

Chicago.

(smooth jazz music) I said, we said sipping from his mama's front porch.

Chicago is the link, the lingering link in a The last link in a Chicago is finding hungry Black souls whining.

Chicago is Black children.

Chicago is Black children on the Tastee Freeze truck.

Tasting raindrops dreaming of cereal presents, and how they going to when they hit the number.

Chicago is a Sunday bath, to bathe off lightening going to sleep in anticipation of seeing a fifth grade Iowa tests and raspberry Glage and pinky bets, monkey bars and Chico sticks, innocuous giggles of old Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, Old Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, All dressed in Chicago is being dressed Chicago is being dressed Chicago is being dressed Black, bittersweet Chicago is Black, it's It's memories remembered.

It's Black, it's It's memories remembered.

Chicago, it's Black, It's memories remembered.

Remember?

(smooth jazz music) The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre: A Blues Poetry Opera a New Frontiers in the from Indiana University Office of the Vice President