KPFA Radio 94.1FM & Marcus Books present:
Wednesday, April 5, 7:30 pm
Impact Hub Oakland, 2323 Broadway, Oakland
Advance tickets: $12 : brownpapertickets.com :: T: 800-838-3006
or Books Inc/Berkeley, Pegasus (3 sites), Moe’s, Walden Pond Bookstore, Marcus Books, Diesel a Bookstore, Mrs. Dalloway’s
$15 door
Chinaka Hodge came of age along with hip-hop—and its influence became inextricable from her personal interactions. Form blends with content in Dated Emcees as she examines her love life through the lens of hip-hop’s best known orators, characters, archetypes and songs, creating a new and inventive narrative about the music that shaped the craggy heart of a young woman poet, just as it changed the global landscape of pop.
“This is an absolute powerhouse of a book…There’s enough beauty and heartbreak and melancholy and humor and sorrow in here for three collections, or two lifetimes. [Chinaka Hodge] deserves a wide audience, an attentive audience, an audience that wants to be astounded.”
— Dave Eggers
“This is poetry that, in its infinite power and intimate grace, will still turn in your mind long after the music is over.”
—Jeff Chang
“Chinaka Hodge is hands down, unequivocally, my favorite writer of words. All day. Every day. She writes with the grace of a dancer, the bars of a rapper, the heart of your best friend, and all of the swag and soul of Oakland… These are poems to read every day. To make mantras from. They are the best poems you’ve ever read.
— Daveed Diggs, actor/rapper, star of Hamilton on Broadway
“Dated Emcees is outlined in the matter of black life, streamlined through the filter of black womb…a smoke-filled lung in a sweat-filled club of safety and danger, and the bass of black moon…”
—Marc Bamuthi Joseph, arts activist, spoken word artist, US Artists Rockefeller Fellow
KPFA benefit