{"id":410871,"date":"2024-07-05T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=410871"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"June-was-African-American-Music-Appreciation-Month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/June-was-African-American-Music-Appreciation-Month\/","title":{"rendered":"June was African-American Music Appreciation Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s hip hop back to June for a villanelle on Spoonie Gee.<\/em><\/p>\n

When my son Jimmy, a Mt. Carmel HS graduate, was listening\u00a0<\/em>incessantly to Ludacris, by the way Ludacris just got his star on\u00a0<\/em>the Hollywood Walk of Fame, I asked him if he had ever heard of\u00a0<\/em>Spoonie Gee. He said no so I wrote a villanelle in tribute to\u00a0<\/em>Spoonie Gee, the man many refer to as the Godfather of Hip Hop.<\/em><\/p>\n

I first read it at the West Las Vegas Arts Center at a monthly\u00a0<\/em>Poet\u2019s Corner. The Poet\u2019s Corner was founded in 1997 by Black\u00a0<\/em>poet Keith Brantley, its host for twenty years. The villanelle\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>original title was \u201cLudicritus Ubiquitous for Spoonie Gee.\u201d I changed the title to, \u201cDo You Remember Spoonie Gee?\u201d and recorded it in 2012. If readers aren\u2019t familiar with a villanelle they may have read Dylan Thomas\u2019 famous poem, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. That poem is a villanelle.<\/em><\/p>\n

DO YOU REMEMBER SPOONIE GEE?<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOh rapper with hip hop cd<\/p>\n

in the old ghetto\u2019s consulate<\/p>\n

do you remember Spoonie Gee<\/p>\n

chill through boom box or DVD<\/p>\n

while Tupac Shakur lies in state<\/p>\n

Oh rapper with hip hop cd<\/p>\n

M&M calls on Doctor Dre<\/p>\n

and lets the dogs out at the gate<\/p>\n

does he remember Spoonie Gee<\/p>\n

still by the light of MTV<\/p>\n

vanquished Vanilla Ice finds his fate<\/p>\n

Oh rapper with hip hop cd<\/p>\n

and still in free style rivalry<\/p>\n

young boys in the hood challenge hate<\/p>\n

do they remember Spoonie Gee<\/p>\n

Iceberg Slim hands out blunts for free<\/p>\n

four anorexic groupies wait<\/p>\n

Oh rapper with hip hop cd<\/p>\n

do you remember Spoonie Gee.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the way Spoonie Gee “Godfather of Hip Hop” has been described as “the original gangsta rapper.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Readers may know Ludacris as Tej Parker in “The Fast and the Furious” films. For my inspiration readers might check out Oscar Wilde’s villanelle “Theocritus.” The similarities might surprise you.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s hip hop back to June for a villanelle on Spoonie Gee. When my son…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}