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Writers Read: Dated Emcees by Chinaka Hodge

July 24, 2016/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Nikki San Pedro

writersread_datedemcees 2On the Friday following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Chinaka Hodge performed selections from her newly released poetry book, Dated Emcees, at 826LA to benefit the literacy organization. With poems honoring Jordan Davis, references to Trayvon Martin and Oscar Grant, and tributes to Tupac and Biggie, Hodge has no shortage of words for black men whose lives were prematurely punctuated by bullets.

what about you’s small
no not legend, not stature
real talk just lifespan (12)

Equal parts liner notes and lyrics to the mixtape of the narrator’s love life, Dated Emcees serves as a little black book of sorts. As a lover, friend, peer, daughter, black woman, and citizen, Hodge’s narrator admits her questionable choices with a combination of pride, power, and wit that reverberates the spirit of hip hop. Flipping the pages, hip hop takes turns as subject, voice, lens. Hodge’s “small poems for Big: twenty-four haiku for each year he lived” and “2pac couplets: one line for each year he lived” eulogize today’s rap legends in old school poetic forms, simultaneously capturing the brevity of their lives while placing them in the continuum of the poetic tradition.

our sweetest thing, our prism and its light
lynched by bullet, won’t survive the knight (14)

Equal parts liner notes and lyrics to the mixtape of the narrator’s love life, Dated Emcees serves as a little black book of sorts.

“Drake questions the deceased, Vegas” (23-24) continues examining how the brevity of life cements one’s status as a cultural icon. We find Hodge’s Drake at the spot Tupac was shot in Las Vegas, summoning his spirit for an interview. The poem acknowledges the Canadian rapper’s roots, how he can “sing of danger but never face it” (23), a privilege of safety that many Americans are considering in the possibility of a Trump presidency. Offering a play-by-play of the final moments of Tupac’s life, the people and places that comprised his last memories, it’s not hard to imagine this séance as the inspiration for Drake’s actual lyrics repeated at the end of the poem, “oh my god/oh my god/if i die i’m a legend” (24).

Hodge’s narrator posits fame as “a hate crime against black men” (24), echoing sentiments in the penultimate couplets of her earlier Tupac tribute. In the ‘90s, the shootings of Big and Tupac reached national attention because of their existing celebrity. Today’s technology facilitates instafame with devices that are both means of media production and distribution; we know the names of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile because, in the same week, they were fatally shot by police officers and their deaths were recorded and shared virtually instantly. Fame, death, hate crime: decades apart, different order of operations in the same equation.

writersread_chinakahodgeNot all of Hodge’s characters are doomed to this fate. Granted, they aren’t all at that same high risk level of fame. Nevertheless, we can feel their own versions of systemic pain and violence through the pages of Dated Emcees. If there is any denial that black lives matter, Hodge’s writing can school those fools.

Although the reading began with a moment of silence out of respect for the week’s casualties, Hodge’s voice, as she read and rapped her way through Dated Emcees, was a reminder to find strength and solidarity in the words we share, in how we choose to fill in the negative space.

Hodge, Chinaka. Dated Emcees. San Francisco: City Lights, 2016. Print.


Nikki San Pedro

Nikki San Pedro is a global city girl: born in Manila, raised in Toronto, studied a semester in Sydney, and adulting in Los Angeles since ’09. She’s pursuing an MFA at Antioch University, using poetry and creative nonfiction to confront pain with humor. You can find her rhymes on Rat’s Ass Review and in the next issue of Angels Flight Literary West.

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/writersread_datedemcees-2.jpg 576 396 Nikki San Pedro https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Nikki San Pedro2016-07-24 22:56:322019-08-11 17:32:09Writers Read: Dated Emcees by Chinaka Hodge

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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published every Friday.

Today’s course:

The Night I Want to Remember

December 16, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Sanaz Tamjidi
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From Paper to the Page

November 18, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Annie Bartos
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Confessions of a Birthday Person

November 4, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Meghan McGuire
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Midnight Snack

A destination for all your late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

Mending the Heart and Slowing Down: Reintroducing Myself to Mexican Cooking

October 7, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
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The Worth of a Billionaire’s Words

September 23, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Kirby Chen Mages
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Abyssinia

August 26, 2022/in Midnight Snack / JP Goggin
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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Word From the Editor

Our contributors are diverse and the topics they share through their art vary, but their work embodies this mission. They explore climate change, family, relationships, poverty, immigration, human rights, gun control, among others topics. Some of these works represent the mission by showing pain or hardship, other times humor or shock, but they all carry in them a vision for a brighter world.

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