Viewing page 3 of 17

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Transcription: [00:06:19]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Are there any last-minute questions for spoons, if not, are there? Hands up? No hands up? Yes ma'am.

[00:06:30]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 3"}
[[inaudible]]

[00:06;33]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Playing spoons is an old art. Yeah. Spoons, how old were you when you first started?

[00:06:37]
{SPEAKER name="Spoons"}[Horace Spoons Williams]
I was 14.

[00:06:38]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
14? And you are now --?

[00:06:39]
{SPEAKER name="Spoons"}
74

[00:06:40]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
That's 60 years ago right there. Spoons playing goes way back. Easily into the 1800s you have references made to spoons playing in like the 1820s and 1830s, where African-Americans on the plantations, slaves, would be playing spoons and bones.

[00:06;57]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Okay we wanna -- one more hand for the audience this time for the help and we'll ask you to please bring the spoons up front here to the stage. Thanks a whole lot. We'll take just a minute break and we'll go into our next workshop which will be on the art of rapping. We have the rappers here with the Grand Masters of Funk. Nope, the Grand Master Nell and the Punk Funk Nation. I'm in, I'm in last week's groove. And the International Playgirls. So just stay around ladies and gentlemen as we study the art of rapology. [[??]] Would you please join us on the stage?

[00:07:42]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 3"}
Tell him he can't sit there.
[00:07:43]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
That's my chair.
[00:07:44]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 3"}
Sit over there.
[00:07:45]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
My chair.
[00:07:47]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 4"}
That's my chair. My chair. My chair. My chair. My chair. My chair, my chair, my chair. [[laughter]]

[00:07:55]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
I'd like to welcome all of you to the workshop area, the narrative area, here at the Black Urban Expressive Culture area where we're featuring performers, traditional performers, and not-so-traditional performers but nonetheless folk artists from Philadelphia.

[00:08:11]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Now many of you have probably been around, seen some of the main stage performances in the large blue and white tent over there to my right. What we're trying to do in this stage is to provide a little background for the performances you see over there in cases of dance and some of the verbal traditions. What we hope to do is break down the traditions so that you can gain a fuller understanding of what it is that goes into the artistry.

[00:08:38]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
When you see a performance, or when you hear something on radio or on a record player, you get an idea that something is happening. You listen to it, it goes off, and it's all over, it passes out of your mind. What we'd like to do on the workshop stage is go a little beyond that by talking to the artists themselves, by attempting to reveal some of the artistry that goes into the creations.

[00:09:03]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Now what we'll be discussing here on the workshop stage today is the art of rapology. The art of the rap. We have with us, from Philadelphia, four master rappers. The first two here, are rappers with Grand Master Nell and the Punk Funk Nation. Immediately to my left is Robbie B. Next to him M.C. Caesar.

[00:09:27]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Next to the two of them, another rap group one of the few women's rap groups in the city of Philadelphia, The International Playgirls. Lazy Smurf and Lady Iced Tea.

[[00:09:42]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
The four artists here on stage are among the finest rappers, if not the finest rappers, in the city of Philadelphia. Now some of you may ask what is rapping? How many out there know what a rap is?