Bomani Armah - Part One

 

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EF: I am most interested about your name. From Daryl Hancock to D'Mite to Bomani Armah. Talk to me a little about that- how did your family respond?

BA: My father is the most supportive person in the world. This might have been one of the few things that he asked me 3 or 4 times if I was sure about-to have his eldest son drop his last name. I took my first name Daryl and made it my middle name- since they went through all the trouble of giving me that name. I never liked the idea of having a European slave owner name as my last name. Sometimes when I say that, some people take offense to it and think that I am trying to tell them that too- but its whatever. It is whatever makes you feel comfortable is fine. Especially Hancock because Hancock is so directly linked to the Constitution and all that stuff- some people are like "that's cool" but I am like "No…" I feel the majority of the founders and writers of the Declaration of Independence were slave owners and I don't like being associated with them. Slave owner equal bad. So I don't like being so closely associated with them. I picked Armah because I picked up some Ayi Kwei Armah books- I only finished one but it jacked me up mentally about what happened to black people and how we might be able to turn things around. And Bomani means poet warrior in Aka (a language from Sudan). Every time you say my name you are reaffirming to me who I am- even though I don't think that every time, it's a psychological thing. It reminds me what the heck I am supposed to be doing- I think that is very important as well. I have often thought if when my sons were 18 and they wanted to change there names. I would probably would do the same thing what my father did and say, "Are you sure? Are you sure?" and as long as they were changing it to something that portrayed there goal and mission in life I wouldn't have a problem in it.

EF: Ok, so you said that you wanted to become a 'hard core gangster rapper'. Please explain that to us because people might have a probably of what that means.

BA: Jesse Jackson came after me- I am officially a gangster rapper. My thing is that we have to redefine 'hard-core'. NWA was hardcore because no one was rapping about that. No one was rapping about guns and bitches and selling coke and killing people. But if everyone is rapping about that, it's not hard-core anymore. That's the norm, that's main stream. What's hard core now is rapping about your children, rapping about the school systems, rapping about your wife, rapping about the community you dream of. What I am doing right now is the new hardcore. I have literally went to the radio with a song about loving your neighbors and that they couldn't play it- that their audience would not be into it. So now that I say love your neighbor like you love yourself it the new hard core. Jay-Z, what Jay-Z if doing is not hardcore. It's pop-bubblegum- "I sell crack"- everyday sort of thing. It's not hardcore at all. It's what people expect. That's what I tell my students now. When we have these conversations about life, goals, and aspirations and they start rapping that gangster stuff I am like "No, that's not gangster anymore. That's typical." That's what they expect from you. If you want to be a rebel, if you want to be a badass you can't rap about that stuff because it is so played out- even stylistically. My man Droopy points it out well: Not even on some social responsible level- on a social responsible level it is wrong to talk about bitches, hoes, guns and crack all day, but now stylistically it is played out. After tens years as a style it is like the 80s hair bands. Hopefully my friends and I are the Nirvana that will show people that 80s hair bands are played out. Do you know what I am saying? I am completely tired of it. I don't want it to go away necessarily, I just want it to move over and shrink or even accurately represent us. I can guarantee you at one point that of the Billboard top 10 rap songs, 7 out of the 10 would be current or former gang bangers and drug dealers. I would ask my students "Are 7 out of 10 of people you know gang bangers or drug dealers?" They would think about it, maybe almost raise there hands for a while but they think "No. Not SEVEN out of every10." That would be there grandmother, their Sunday school teacher, and the bus driver. There are a huge number of people who aren't drug dealers and gang bangers who don't get represented on the radio at all. And that is just sad. That is a misrepresentation of out culture. And it is about time for that to stop.

EF: Up until this point, what do you think is you greatest achievement, as an individual or career-wise?

BA: My greatest achievement is getting my videos played on BET. The first video was "Cool wit you" which is about loving your neighbor and the other is about reading books. I had both of them playing on BET and I didn't compromise myself at all. Personally my greatest achievement is being married for five years, just cause I don't see that many people around me doing that. IT shouldn't be such a big achievement but the way our culture moves right now. That's actually a documentary I am working on right now- the states of black relationships and understanding it. Other than that, I don't know.

I am hoping my next video gets played on BET but its really hard-core, with fathers playing with their sons and stuff like that. It's really hard core- changing diapers, tying shoelaces, pulling up their pants over their ass.

EF: That's revolutionary.

BA: Yeah and that's the other thing- all the stuff I am doing is revolutionary and it shouldn't be. It should be normal. And that's sad. There are enough people that feel me that I should be a lot more adamant on how people are feeling me, supporting me even if I am not on the radio again, using the Internet, using all these other venues. My man was telling me all I need to do is to call up everybody from every city that has a membership to the public access television station and send them your videos so the public access will start playing my videos. If BET plays your videos fine, but there are enough people ground level that are tired of commercial radio and will find ways of supporting what you do. 2008 is the take over year.

EF/BA: (6:48-8:50) Was it hard getting started? Being an Entrepreneur? Making your goals your lifestyle.

EF: I wanted to ask you about this line in one of your songs: "Man, woman, and child is my Holy Trinity because my old one didn't have any feminine energy." I had to ask you about that. I've never even heard that thought development.

BA: The Pimp Preacher was the idea that we are all fighting with the two sides of our personality. We often want to say 'good' and 'evil' but sometimes it is just us understanding the world. At different points and times, different parts of us come out. I don't consider myself a nigger but if I intake the wrong liquids and I am in a bad mood, the nigger in me might come out.

But that line specifically "Man, woman, and child is my Holy Trinity because my old one didn't have any feminine energy." I grew up in a Christian Church and when I went to college and when I started studying religion and the basis of religion, the Holy Trinity is a universal theme, a lot of religions have them. In many religions, the Trinity involves a man, woman, and child. In Egyptian mythology and Indian mythology, they all have a holy trinity- man, woman, and child. In Christianity, they replaced the woman with, as my friend once put it, a 'non-gendered poltergeist'.

EF: That's my friend now.

Both laugh.

BA: They replaced the woman in the Trinity with a 'non-gendered poltergeist' because of their issues with femininity. But it also says in the Bible "As is in Heaven, all creatures are formed from the combination man, woman, and child." It is the idea of having the masculine energy and the feminine energy and that creating life. For some reason in the religion I was brought up in there is no woman in that Trinity and that understanding of how God works. That was a very crucial understanding for me. I am glad you asked me that question. Not enough people asked me that question but I am glad you specifically asked me that.

Another line I had in the song is "I am close to perfection when I make love to my Shea." Shea is my wife but it also means life in Swahili. As a human being, the closest you get to getting the pure energy of God is in conceiving a child. That's the closest you get. And that's what it is- the Holy Trinity of life. I am not a member of religion or anything but that is what I have understood- that we have to understand all sides of creation in order to understand God. And completely taking away that aspect of your religion completely sabotages the rest of what you are trying to do.

EF: Put these words in context if you will: "Sometimes you're optimistic/ Sometimes you're suicidal/ don't believe in Jesus but I always quote the Bible."

BA: First line definitely: I go from moment to moment. I have the best days and the worst days at the same time. Today was a big day. I started looking at a video shoot on ARs…

EF: Your interview with Elliott…

BA: (laughs) Yeah I am getting to that part. My interview with Elliott but the electricity in my apartment is not working, my cell phone was off, and all my gigs are all messed up. The day my video hit BET was the day I was 2 months behind on my rent and I realized the idea is to not too get too happy or too sad. Life is a rollercoaster and if you go with it too much you'll go crazy. But sometimes I get caught up in it.

The "Don't believe in Jesus/ always quote the Bible" thing- after I had a lot of trouble with the Bible. After I realized that the Bible is not the exact word of God that it became more interested and more quotable. It's got a lot of nuggets of knowledge. It's got some knowledge in it but it is not the exact words of God. It's a whole bunch of men trying to figure out what God has been doing for all bunch of centuries so they come up with good stuff. But then they come up with bad stuff, like where Paul says, "Men with long hair are shamed and woman with short hair are whores." He specifically says that in the Bible. And the inconsistencies in the Bible- in the simple fact that God was really violent. I don't know if you read the Old Testament but God used to kick ass. The idea that a leader can tell you to commit genocide is not unbiblical. God told King Solomon to kill all man, woman, child and cattle in a couple place. But god became a lot more peaceful when he got a child. The whole New Testament, he has a completely different attitude.

EF: Yeah the grace.

BA: There is a whole bunch of stuff in the Bible that now as I read it as a metaphor… as a matter of fact- I had a friend of mine, Lamar Hill. He probably wasn't the first person to come up with it but he was the first person I'll mention. He was like "Man, why can't we read the stories as metaphors." Like the fact that Adam and Eve and the Apple. The apple was probably sex- they were completely cool, they loved each other, there was no death, there was no violence, then they were like 'this fits in there and it feels good', God told us it didn't but it does…So it becomes more interesting now that I am not like this was like how this story went day by day. It becomes more interesting. I read it more afterwards. And so that's where that came from… And hopefully when the dust settles and I am not so much in the hustling mood I am going to get more into it. I used to be really in depth into studying religion. I was actually obsessed with it. I would debate Christians into arguments just because some believe just because you don't believe means that you must not know the Bible. So I would debate them in arguments and quote verses.

EF: You and I would have fun.

Both laugh.

BA: I have begun to let people have there own thing. I am also not against you having a religion. I also feel that I am missing something because I don't have a system that reminds me. Religion is literally time you give back to god and I don't really have a system that does that. It couldn't be Christianity right now but I do understand its importance. I think one of the reasons I am successful is because I grew up in a system and in a church and family and church instilled certain things and I want to make sure I continue that but I got to figure out which one really reflects what I really think.

EF: How influential has that background been?

BA: Oh, extremely. One of the emphasis was grown men at my church handling their business and I am very excited to make that the 'cool' thing to do now. That's the new hard core. The churches I used to go to I used to play in a lot of the choirs and the brothers there showed me what it means to be a responsible man. So even though I don't believe in there system I do believe in having a group of people who have all the same mind set and the same goals and that instill that in there children and remain 'hardcore'.

EF: Thank you.

BA: Thank you for asking me some good questions.

 

Introduction | Bomani Armah Interview Part 1 | Bomani Armah Interview Part 2