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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [00:05]
B
This is just a forward. We consider ourselves fully committed. We are sure that other young people like us exist, prepared to add their signatures to ours, and who, to the extent that it remains compatible with continuing to live, refuse to become part of the surrounding ignominy. And we've had it with those who try to, consciously or not, with smiles, work, exactitude, proprieties, speeches, writing actions, and with their very being to make us believe that things can continue as they are. We are hell bent on sincerity. We want to see clearly into our dreams and we are listening to what they tell us. This little storybook is a provisional tool, and if it collapses, we shall find others. From a Declaration of Self Defense the opening track in My City Needs Something Portraits and Prose for Black Existence, co authored by my guest educator and cultural worker, Dr. Christopher R. Rogers. Chris, welcome to the podcast.
- [01:18]
A
Yes one, I love that you started with the attract from My City needs something that gets us off on the right point. And because it's a track, I should also admit that it's a sample, if you will. I'll come out of rap. And it's a sample from Legitine Defense, which is like a 1930s. I learned about this through Robin Kelly. It's like a surrealist Marxist manifesto. Rene Menil is one of the people who was involved in it. This is 1930s Martinique. So the beginning of the surrealist sort of like tradition is also sort of noted as the beginning of Negritude. So I was like this is great and we need to bring this back and more people should know about it. So in the rap tradition, you kind of sample stuff into a book. And I think it was the perfect tone to get us started.
- [02:15]
B
Yeah, well I, I love that. And even, you know, before I clicked record you and I just said, you know, hello a little bit and already I'm can tell this is going to be a fantastic, a fantastic discussion. Before we launch in though, to really the more substance of the book, can you just describe it for listeners?
- [02:39]
A
That's great. Yes, thank you. So the book is entitled My Siby Needs Something. Subtitle is Portraits and Prose on Black Existence. It's through Common Notions Press. It's in some ways a sequel to How We Stay Free Notes on a Black Uprising, which was published in 2022 through Common Oceans Press. How We Stay Free was an anthology that covered the black uprising during the time. I mean the dominant name now would be the George Floyd Uprising, but certainly so many lives and so many people. And so the legacy of you know, just racial injustice in this country led into that moment. So with this book, what this book does, in sort of building on the work of How We Stay Free, which documented the sort of on the streets moments in black organizing in Philadelphia in 2020 into 2021. This one is kind of a more of a personal take of the ingredients necessary to sustain ourselves within black liberation struggle. Like this sort of more internal, more poetic, more sort of memoir re way of thinking of, like, what are the necessary ingredients that we need to stay in the struggle? Right. And what sorts of transformations of self are needed as we go about the work of transforming the world? So that's the. That's the. I would say that's the big idea. And then underneath that, I love rap music. You know, I grew up on rap music. And there's a song by PNB Rock, one of, you know, City Philadelphia is incredibly immersion artists of the late sort of 2010s, and, you know, certainly was on his way. He was tragically murdered in LA in 2022 at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, sort of like a botched robbery. But he had a song in 2014 called My City Needs Something. And one of the things he says is like, you know, my city needs something different, but I don't know what it is. It's a very sort of, like, Philadelphia blues song. Right. And the idea of the. Alongside Kareem Brown's incredible photos throughout the book is this, like, you know, and Kareem's a black studies. He teaches high school. And we. Our conversations is, you know, we found each other in the bookstore, and it's been like, no, I think we got some answers. You know, I think a lot of our young people, a lot of our, you know, folks in community, you know, say, like, yes, we recognize that we do need something different, and it can be true sometimes that we don't know. But I think Kareem and I wanted to use this as an opportunity to reflect the reality of Philadelphia as we know it. Then also remind folks that we sit on the foundation of some of our ancestors was in the book. Some are still with us of guidance, of wisdom. Right. But I think all the words, all the quotes, all the sort of, like, stories and parables remind us that we come from something. We have something to hold on to, and we need to apply that into the work that we do in the world. So it's multiple different angles coming into it, but at its core, it's an experiment in trying to figure out how do we gather the city together, and particularly black Philadelphia, because I'm not even from Philadelphia. I'm from chester, which is 20 minutes outside the city, which is a deeply black city. And I consider it as part of black Philadelphia. But, you know, our address is different.
- [06:56]
B
So again, before we click record, we had touched this just a tiny bit. This idea of the book being incredibly rooted in place. And so I. I don't live in Phil. I have never. I've lived a lot of places. I have never lived in Philadelphia at all. And so I'm coming to this book really, as an. As an outsider reading the book. Talk about. Talk about Philadelphia as a character in the book or a. A grounding place. Talk a little bit about how you think about that as the author.
- [07:37]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think even the title, right. Even the title, like, which is old to, like, what PD Muroc was doing, like, you know, my city, right. My city needs something. Right. Even the idea, like, my city, right. Which is something that you certainly around here, we hold on to, like, that sort of like, this is ours. You know, I grew up in that. Certainly, you know, I think me and Philadelphia struggles over that together. But, like, that sense of, like, being from here means something, and it's something that you have to struggle over. And in particular, you know, you take the good with the bad of it, you know, and this is kind of more of a Chester thing, which is in Delaware County. But, like, I definitely grew up in the era of, like, you know, the news is coming on and some bad thing has just happened, some, you know, harmful thing has just happened, and you're waiting and hoping that the person that they're going to show is not from your city. Like, that sense of. Being. The suffering that goes along with that of the Sixers losing, the Eagles losing, you know what I mean? The pain, but also the wins of, like, when. For city of Chester, when Jameer Nelson, you know, who's currently the president of Sixers, but, like, he was, you know, when he came through college basketball and was winning everything, and St. Joe's University was just on this incredible winning streak that was like, our city's moment on the national stage when, you know, Tyreek Evans as a high school basketball player, like Ja Lil Beats, which is a music producer. So, like, these are individuals that are from our city that have gone to, like, accomplish things and be cited in ways. But, like, we felt that sense of real kinship, right? Of, like, these folks came out of the same places that we were at. And I think that's something that you Know, certainly I try to propagandize a lot. Like, I still try to think, like, it's something that we should hold on to from that. The sort of fictive kinship of, of, of, you know, I don't know. In the book, I even have this moment where I'm like, is it black families or, like, black assemblages of families of like, you know, my niece's cousin is also, you know, part of my high school class. Like, you're thinking of all these sort of, like, little, as Grace Lee Boggs might say, critical connections that help make up a neighborhood or a community where folks see themselves together. And I definitely feel like in the age of the Internet, we're losing that. We're losing that sense of like, you know, who are the people that you grew up with? Who are. The place that I asked my students, you know, tell me about the place that you claim or the place that claims you, which is a really important, you know, thing of, like, what is the thing that holds us together? And particularly as we go into organizing work, we're going to need a lot more to hold us together. And if it's just some sort of political principle, if it's just the idea of abolition, I don't think it's going to be enough for the things that we're going to have to do and for the amount of struggle that we're going to have to each other, what holds us together. And for me, I found police in my city to be a huge indicator of that. For better or worse, you said something interesting there.
- [11:44]
B
You said the place that you claim or the place that claims you. And as you were talking, I was thinking about. I was thinking about James Baldwin, of course, who appears in, in the book, and James Baldwin, you know. You know, James Baldwin was American, right? Like, even when he was in Paris, even when he was other places, like, he was American because he, and he claimed it for all of its faults. And I think, you know, that certainly resonates with me. For sure, I've lived outside of the United States, but for better or worse, I'm. I'm an American. But what about I, I, what about a place, a place that doesn't claim you? And, you know, Baldwin never said, well, I mean, those weren't those. Not Baldwin's words. But I think about that, right? And I think about. Even though it's sort of on a. From a silly, jokey front, you know, I live in New York City, and recently there was a big debate about who gets to call themselves a New Yorker, right? And some people say, well, after 10 years, some people say, well, as soon as you get here. And some people say, never. If you weren't born here, you're not a New Yorker, full stop. Talk about. Yeah, talk about this idea.
- [12:57]
A
This is. But this is. Yes, but this is like. I mean, in group chats, I'm huge on this. Like, you know what I mean? Like, when the New York Knicks, you know, won their championship. And I'm like, I see a lot of people in these videos that don't seem like they was down you when, you know, when the Knicks was going through the. Like, you know, he. Like, I don't. And maybe it could be, like I said, like a black Philadelphia thing of, like, yo, if you ain't suffered with us, don't be out here, you know what I mean, on the front lines when the cameras get here, you know, there's a certain honor that is given to the folks who have, you know, been through it. And, you know, it's like one of the things that's interesting about that to kind of even connect to my own story, right? Like, you know, James Baldwin Goes to Paris, Richard Wright. I currently am working on Henry Ossawa Tanner's childhood home. The project's called Friends of the Tanner House, and we're working on saving that Henry Oswald Tanner, also someone who spent a lot of time in Paris. And there's this book by George Lamming called Pleasures of Exile where he's talking about, you know, his sort of, you know, exile, his own sort of, like, growth. He's sort of like the beginning of the Windrush generation and his travel from Barbados and Trinidad and ended up in London and where he writes in the Castle of My Skin. And this sort of idea of, like, me being able to step out of that place allowed me the, you know, the sort of, like, the psychic resources to be able to reflect on it in a way that I don't think I could have accomplished if I was home. And certainly I think this book is like that for me and this sort of split that is happening through the book between Philadelphia and Chester, you know what I'm saying? And so I grew up in Chester. My mother was a schoolteacher there. My father was a member of multiple bars and also the treasurer for the state representative who eventually go on to be the mayor. I was in every community program that I think existed. You know what I'm saying? Of me, there's four, you know, three other siblings, and my mother's a school teacher. So it's like, oh, look, you get dropped off over here. Now I'm getting dropped off like you just so like that sort of community presence. And then as I go and I'm trying to figure out my career and jobs and stuff, I end up making my way into Philadelphia. And while, yeah, it's like 20 minutes away, in many ways it's like Paris. You know, What I'm saying is the difference of, what do they say, like the Colony versus the Metro Pole, in some ways of like, no, Philadelphia has this. A top 10 metro in the US you got access to a whole bunch of things. Like the things I could get from the University of Pennsylvania library are impossible for me to even imagine when I'm in Chester. Or I could just look it up on the Internet if I was in Chester. So it was just like the access that came through that. And in many ways, I think I still bring that same feeling of being that small city guy into this larger place. Now the thing that it works is at the end of the day, the sort of black cultural hipness and the fact that most of us come from the south anyway is it allows you to be able to access communities of just like, yeah, I'm very aware of who set up the chairs and who has to take down the chairs after our community meeting. Because in my childhood I couldn't leave. I was. Well, my mom wasn't gonna allow us to leave. Cause she was having three conversations anyway. So we is gonna be the ones that some deacon is gonna be like, help put up the chairs, can you grab the tables and blah, blah, blah. So like that, that gesture of what it takes to create the space and hold the space is something that I bring with me from home and definitely allows me to be able to see even this city, Philadelphia, in different ways. There's another funny joke about it too. If I could do this when this book, as I'm working, this book is on its way. The new mayor of Chester, Stephan Roots, a good friend of mine known since I was in high school, and he says, you should do a lecture in City Hall. I said, well, one, I can speak freely. They don't never let me speak freely. But I was like, one, I can speak freely, say, yeah, for sure. Yeah, just say, okay, I'm in, right? And then he says, yeah, this is going to be a Homecoming. I live 20 minutes. I live like 10 I95 exits away from where I was born and raised. And somehow my city considers this a homecoming for me to take the 20 minute drive to City hall like that, that's my city, you know, of like that sort of closeness, that sort of like if you're not present, if you're not at the community event, if you're not at the meeting, then you wasn't here and you don't care. And for better or worse, you know, that's how we struggle.
- [18:45]
B
You've. Well, you've dropped a lot of names even as we've been talking. Not just people in and around Philadelphia and Chester, but also literary, literary figures as well. This book is littered with literary references and they flow in, in such a way. And I hadn't thought about until earlier in our conversation where you said, oh, they're like music samples. I thought was such a great, such a great analogy. Talk about how. Well, this is a two part question. One sort of how all these literary references made their way into the book. But I'm also curious whether there anyone appeared that surprised you.
- [19:37]
A
That's a good one. That's a good one. Because part of why I'm doing it is the surprise, you know. Yeah. So I think from a, from a conceptual standpoint, I've always been. And anyone who's on my Instagram knows is, you know, I just kind of take photos of books a lot. You know, the way I heard, the last way I heard it that was called is like keystones. Like the idea of like the keystone moment within a poem or within a essay or a paragraph. That sort of moment that we, you know, come back to, right. Like we talked about James Baldwin be like, you know, what's the. Nothing impossible. We cannot, you know, we don't always know if impossible can be changed, but we won't know until it is faced. Like these sorts of moments that have resonated throughout time. I come back to Lorraine Hansberry's Raising in the Sun a lot, you know, in terms of like those sort of moments of dialogue that like you take, take one step back from the sort of immediate story and you go like, that's a. Like in rap you would say that's a bar. You know, it's dangerous for a man to find peace outside of his home. You know, like. So like those moments are always resonating with me. And it's like the parables of it and like using those as sort of like a new version of Proverbs, if you will, which I was forced to read as a child a lot that just came to me of just like, yeah, you know, my Aunt Karen, you know, I think in the summer when we get sent to her house, like we could not go outside until we like read a chapter of Proverbs out loud. So like, what did it say? Like that way of memory verses stands, you know, really key to me. And it's something that I come back to a lot in my writing. And it's also like I forget to give a shout out to like Imani Perry and her book Prophets of the Hood about hip hop. And she says like, you know, hip hop is a self referential thing. Like the rapper is always referencing other works within rap. I mean, it's sad now, you know, on the radio, you know what I'm saying? Because I think a lot of these young people think they listening to a new song and it's totally not. It's just some recycled lyric from 2007.
- [22:19]
B
I feel like that's how we know we're all getting older. When you start making that observation, right?
- [22:24]
A
I mean, there was a look at a song and you're like, so what I'm doing in the book is trying to reference a lot of these works and create these little bridges, you know, PNB rock. If we were to take an honest look at his life, I imagine many of the people would be like, there's no reason why PNB rock should be in conversation with James Baldwin and Tony Cape and Bard and Toni Morrison. The type of things that he's talking about and the type of, you know, life that he even lived does not mean he should be accorded that sense of honor to be named amongst those folks. And I think that that excludes an incredible amount of our community. And I think that it like, it just creates these sort of like ruptures and gaps, right? Because I guess, and I don't know who said this one, but it's like the idea of like no human experience is alien to me, right? So I think there's something about us honoring the sort of like fullness of everyday folks, right? And their ambitions, their pursuits, their passions, their mistakes, their like all those things that go into making a life and then saying like, where we're all striving to try to do something different or to try to make something different or to be something different, to get over, if you will, to get out. And I think that when we honor that as an everyday pursuit, it possibly can allow our young people or anybody who takes a sincere read of it to see themselves not as just, you know, who they are in the moment, but also possibilities of who they could be. So like, how do we bring these sort of, you know, very larger than life, you know, personalities and Wisdom and the craft and skillfulness of, you know, these incredible black writers and make it seem, you know, tangible, make it seem like something you can hold on to. So, like, that's part of it, you know? And I think other than that, I. As you mentioned, I don't think I can think without it at this point. Like, I don't think I can have a conversation with someone without referencing, you know, what June Jordan said. Because I needed to read what June Jordan said in order for me to become me. So Ms. Lauryn Hill says, you know, all my songs are me first, that I'm singing about the things that I needed to say in order for me to get over or to get through what I needed to get through. So this song, you know, is the sort of result of the sort of mad science experiment of me trying to find the thing that brought me to peace, that brought me healing, and now I'm in the part of trying to share that with y'. All. I feel like that's what I'm attempting to do through my writing is focus on the struggling through the work of it and gathering up the names and histories and lineages that help me find a sense of peace of mind or some healing or recognizing that who I once was doesn't have to be who I will be. That's Amir Suleiman. These references help me, you know, guide a sense of the life that I'm trying to build.
- [26:08]
B
It strikes me there's something here about access. I mean, accessibility, in part, but also discoverability. That's a better word for it, discoverability. Because I'm thinking about, you know, a reader, you know, somebody who may come to your book because they're familiar with PNB Rock, for example, and perhaps they come to the book because of that. And they may have never heard of Lorraine Hansberry. And then they're going to read her words and many others in the book that would hope would then spark the like, oh, who's this person? You know? Who's this Toni Morrison person, you know?
- [26:51]
A
Oh, yeah. And to say that I do have and I don't. I know this might go out, and I'm not trying to start anything, but I run a writing workshop in North Philadelphia on Strawberry Mansion called the Any Day Now Writing Workshop, which is a tribute in itself to Larry Neal. Grew up in North Philadelphia, one of the architects of the black arts movements. And at that writing workshop, I got into a debate with a participant about. And my thing was, Tony K. Bambara writes better bars than your favorite rapper. If you look at sentence per sentence. It's like. So in some ways, it's discovery, but I'm also making a case that, like, there's the, like, rap level of, like, what counts as, you know, and it's like a battle rap sort of thing of, like, what can shake the room, if you will. But then when you get higher up, you know, into, like, Toni Morrison and Toni K. Bambar, like, Toni Morrison says, you know, I didn't fall in love, I rose in it. Come on. Like, that's like. But then you gotta realize that it's not about just that line. It's about the story that you had to build to be able to deliver that line in it. And what I'm. And so I'm also making a case, I imagine, with my community. We gotta unbound the music from the music from the sort of music itself, right? There's a musicality of writing that is also there that expands, like you said, expands what we can discover. And also it can expand what we noticed and what we hold onto when we hear people, you know, talk. So I try to do that. But then at the same time, there's, like, quotes in there from just, like, regular everyday folk, you know, like Ms. Francis, who talked about the difference between a tenant and a. And a neighbor. You know, like, there's. You know, and to give that story. Ms. Francis. So on's part of my dissertation project. Um, it's 2026. She does not have a. I think she has a flip phone on purpose, Right. She doesn't have a smartphone. She knows the bus schedule in her head. Cause you know how some people use the phone to figure out what the bus. No, she knows, like, the times of when the bus is supposed to. Like, this is someone who is, like, grounded and rooted in a place of like, you don't need to call me. I'll see you when we get there. You know, like, I love Ms. Frances for that. But one of her things was just like, yeah, if you don't, like, you gotta meet. Like, when people move in on your block, you supposed to get to know them. Like, she said, I don't think you know somebody until you know about their grandmother. And I was like, that. That is what it means to actually build community and to, like, yes. Take some time, bring some food over and get to know. To somebody. Right. Oh, where'd you come from? Oh, where's where your grandmama and your people from? Like, those are traditions and recipes that helped us build the sense of community and connectedness that really, you know, allows Us to build anything that would be called, like, a black agenda for change. You know, like, those are incredible practices that we need to keep alive.
- [30:29]
B
We've been talking about some of these, you know, bars, as you said, from. From the poets and the writers. But, you know, you've got quite a bit of litter lyricism in this book as well that comes from you and. And not from. And not from other people. One of the things that you write is cis. Heteropatriarchy is a long word for when love don't live here no more. Talk about that.
- [30:57]
A
Yeah, thank you for that. And, well, certainly one part of that is Rolls Royce, you know, shout out to that record. And that chapter is stay ready so you don't have to get ready. And the idea of it is, like, how do we prepare ourselves towards black liberation? And one of the things as the book is me in conversation with PNB rock. And as I mentioned, like, I think if you. If you listen to PNB Rock, like, at best, you could say he wasn't emotionally available to a lot of his, you know, partners, if you will. And certainly there's a streak in it that feels like he was not, you know, done in his misogyny or maybe he. Not his. His awareness of, you know, patriarchy is not something that was made available, like, during his lifetime. And at the same time, you know, as PNB rock is sort of symbolizing this conversation between myself and other black men around Philadelphia, it's like, we gotta step into these terms in ways that. And this is one of the struggles that I noticed or felt is just like, as a brother, as someone who's grown up with, like, we can't have a. We can't create a community meeting around toxic masculinity and expect that the majority of my brothers are going to come when you've already set the frame in a particular way. What I'm attempting to do in that chapter is say, like, how can we recognize the inheritance, right. Cis heteroic patriarchy? I think right after that, there's a reference to, you know, bell hooks and trying to do a bit of a bridge to, you know, tell folks to read bell hooks. But I think we have to put it in our own, like, words. We have to put it into our own experiences in order to actually, like, be sincere in our engagement with each other. So the idea of that chapter and my sort of lyricism is trying to say, like, how do we take it out of just reciting? Right, let's take it out of just reciting what we Read from bell hooks, what we can think about from the works of June Jordan or Audre Lorde or many of the incredible sort of lineage of black feminists thinking around patriarchy. Combahee River Collective. How do we honor the work that has been done and at the same time recognize that it is not their responsibility for us to transform ourselves? So in that, how do we bring that language into something that we think best honors what we know about our own selves? So that was the premise of that section. Even of that chapter is like, how to step into a conversation about, like, my own hangups, my own half steps and what I realized along the way, to be able to share that with my brothers in a way that I think that would land with them, right, that we can kind of continue with dialogue. I spent a lot of time in a barbershop. My cousin was my barber for many years. He still is. And that meant that I could never get my hair cut on time. It also meant, you know, that my car was, like, collectively ours for the time that I was there. Like, oh, Chris, can you go pick up this? Da, da, da, da. Look, you gonna be next as soon as you get back, you gonna be next. Was I next? No, I was there until, like, 11:00pm but, like, the idea of, like, you're spending time, right? And in that, you know, you have to entertain a lot of conversations. It's like a waiting room, if you will. But, like, how do you use that in a productive, you know, and generative sort of way? Like, there's nobody wants to be in a barbershop arguing about, you know, you want to figure out, I want to be able to tell a story, but I want us to keep going. So some of the lyricism, too, is just like, trying to own that folks might not be able to hear you if you do a direct address, but if you dress it up and it's just like, oh, I'm enjoying the story, they might walk away with something later, you know, so that's also in it, right? In that chapter, in that story of like, yeah, so what would happen if we. If we black men listen to Rolls Royce's Love Don't. Love doesn't hear live here anymore. What story is actually animating that song? And what experience leads this black woman to be like, I'm going. You know, all those things are things that I'm trying to surface within it.
- [36:00]
B
I'm stuck on something you just said that, you know, sometimes people don't hear a direct address. You know, you sort of have to talk around it. And my experience of reading the book as, as a. As a whole, now I'm not talking about just this chapter, but as a whole was that it was like the most direct of. Of direct addresses to me, the reader, even though so much of it is talking to PNB Rock, but like as me, the reader. And now I'm thinking, because I only read it one time in preparation for this, now I'm thinking, oh my gosh, what did I miss that's also in there? You know, that wasn't part of the direct address because I did receive like the book in totality very much as a direct address to me that.
- [36:51]
A
But I, I think that's the, that is the. I'm happy to hear that because I feel like that's the experiment that I'm trying to figure out as a, as a, as a. As a writer is. And it's, it's kind of in there in the Poets on the Stoop chapter. The sort of image of. It's nothing like listening when you not involved in the conversation or when you wasn't invited into the. Particularly in a black home. I think that chapter in particular talks about my aunt's house and the kind of conversation that's happening in the kitchen when we, the kids are supposed to be in the front room just watching tv. And it's nothing like listening and going like, what they talking about in there? You know, like, I could think about if I was a good example and I think I do mention it in there of like, you know, like when you was asking, can you stay over your cousin's house? And they're like, we gonna talk about it? And you're like, what they talking about? Can we. Are we gonna be able to go, you know, so like that idea of like, I think we do. We take it. We can take it in more personally, right? When it doesn't. When it's not like your defensiveness in some ways can be dropped, that allows you to be able to access it more directly or to just hear it, right. And then discover what it means for you versus being told. I think the being told part is the feeling that it can create these sort of back and forth and defensiveness that doesn't allow us to like, yo, but just get out yourself for a minute and just listen. And I think you'll find like a little gem or something that you can hold onto from it. But when we're demanding that we're, you know, taught something or given something, I think, yeah, I think you do miss stuff.
- [38:59]
B
I interviewed Honoree Fanon Jeffers, when her last book came out, Misbehaving at the Crossroads, and we were talking about the reader, and she said, I write for black women. I assume other people are listening. And I'm curious. Well, maybe who, like, I mean, I can guess, but like, who are you writing for? But do you. Do you also assume other people are listening and like, do you care if they are?
- [39:32]
A
This is perfect. Yes. And shout out to. So the first immediate thing reference that comes to mind, one of my favorite rappers of now evidence says, you know, I make the songs for me. But I keep you in mind, I think as we sort of mentioned and going back to the sort of miss Lauryn Hill, all my songs are me first. There's a part of this that is me trying to mark and document my own sort of, you know, growth, if you will, hopefully you can call it growth, and trying to like, put that down in a way that I'll remember. So, like, these stories that I'm recovering are like important things for me to like sit and think with and just moments that I want to hold on to. So part of it is the archive, like the archival part is for me then I think, yes, I am very. You say like place centered in the fact that like, well, what did I say to the publisher or something like that? Oh, 22nd street in North Philadelphia. 22nd street is a pop in business district. It's, you know, near like loife. Holistic hair care is, you know, incredible sort of hair salon, does locks. Tiffany's bakery is on 20. Like, this is a. Folks in North Philadelphia would know 22nd street and would know how popular. It's important for me that we honor the specificity of what 22nd street is. Do I think that most people will know? Not really. But like I said, I grew up on rap music. You know, I went to LA for the first time in April. And I mean, and I'm just getting a little Uber from the airport to, you know, where the Staples center, because it's a conference, you know, and I'm like, it's amazing how much stuff I know about this place. I have never been here, but I'm seeing street names and stores and this and I'm like, hold up. A music video was made there. And I'm like, so like, I also grew up in that sort of tradition of like, you listen to a space that you don't know, you know, you know how much New York history was forced on me as a lover of rap music. Like, so I think there's A part of it, too, in that tradition of the reader, if you will. Of like. I imagine that as a reader, a listener of like, now you gotta get real specific, you know, like, I grew up in. And when I was in high school, it was like, knowing who the drug kingpin was of a particular, you know, metro area was like, key knowledge of, like, who was really getting money here. Or like, that was like. So, like, I say all this to say of, like, the reader that I'm trying to attract with that is folks who recognize the importance and beauty and expansiveness of black geographies and have, like, a love of it, right? And can from their own. And this will probably, you know, I've talked to other authors who'd be like, yes, in the sense of like. I'm not explaining. I'm not attempting to explain this to people who don't get it because they get so much stuff already. That is attempt. Black people have been trying to explain things for far too long now. Just say that. I'm trying to speak to the people who are living it, you know, and can make the connections and can see a bit of themselves within it. It's like the Wu Tang Clan, if you will, of like, why is these shows filled with white people who ain't never going to Staten island, who ain't never going, like, but somehow they're just like, you know. So it's also a bit of a theory there, too, of just like, when you withhold from white people, that's usually when you become the biggest star.
- [43:51]
B
You didn't say this specifically, but I think you're saying it implicitly also, which is, you know, this, this. It's the if you know, you know, right. Of. Of it. All of. Of of if you know, you know, and if you don't know, it's not for you. And I think that for a certain class, a certain population of readers, a certain population of readers has an expectation that they're going to be told that you're the writer. It's, you know, it's your obligation to tell me. I don't subscribe to that. And even as a reader, I don't subscribe to that. So, again, coming to this book, which I, you know, I. I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend, and I sort of said to you offline that, you know, it's not. I mean, it's. It's certainly. It's. It's prose. The book is prose. However, I think, you know, people that are looking for poetry as well, like, I would certainly hand them this book. Too. We're recording this in August. It's the time for the Sealy Challenge. This should absolutely be on people's Sealy Challenge list as well, to mix it up. But while I felt very invited in and held by the book, there were certainly parts where it was very clear. I, you know, I was eavesdropping, right? It wasn't, it wasn't for me, you know, as a, As a woman, as a non Philadelphia person. And that's okay. It has to be okay.
- [45:29]
A
And you know what? Like, I, I, I, I'm. I'm also, like, a attentive to that, as it happens in the music as well. One of The Songs by PnB Rock is the intro to his R&B2 mixtape. The first, like, the first two verses is HIM like, I'm getting money, I got these girls. You know, we out here, this my city, I'm running things. Da da da, da da. Oh, man. And he gets into, like, the third verse or near the sort of, like, end of the record, and he goes, yeah, and I. And I do this for my mama, you know, and she just got. And you know, what's up, mom? She just got home from surgery, you know, we gonna be all right. And what I do. And I taught this song in my little class. And one of the things I was trying to tell people is, like, you have to understand the experience of the music studio and the fact that you don't know what he came into that studio on his mind with, but he was making this song to get himself out of that mood. And he did enough in that beginning, first two verses of the song where he could acknowledge the pain that he was experiencing towards the end of that third verse. So you could look at the first two verses and go, like, oh, he ain't talking about nothing. He ain't doing this. It's like, yes, he's trying to, you know, move himself out of this space of where it feels so heavy on him. But by the time he gets to the end of the song, he can acknowledge at least what I would imagine to be part of what is stressing him in this moment. Right? Like, the thing that I'm doing all this sort of, like, braggadocio stuff, because I don't want to be in that space where I feel stuck. So it's like you could look at it as, like, the. A switch of audience or a switch. But it's also like, it's like a switch of purpose in some regards, too, right? Like, it's. What is this? You gotta, like, try to imagine as a reader, maybe this is the thing that I'm, you know, my reader note of, like, when you're reading it, you also have to imagine what this book or what this writing or what this poem or what this thing, what this song is doing for them and honor that, right? Like, this could be the thing that's keeping them from who knows what. That sort of pursuit of this dream or the pursuit of this striving is what's keeping them going. And, yeah, there's things along the way that we would love to educate people around, but I think we all also need that thing that we're striving for, and we need to be encouraged about that and then figure out how we integrate our lives into that striving rather than this sort of. I don't know, I think one of the lines in there is just like, you know, I would rather be on the run than sort of like drenched, shamed and stuck in the mud. You know what I mean? And I think when I listen to a lot of rap music, I feel that. I feel that a lot, particularly with our young people of like, yo, they need to make these songs. They need to make these songs. They need to be able to get that out. They need to be able to force someone to say, I hear you. You know, to feel heard, to feel a sense of acceptance, right? They need that in order to do the other things. And I feel like so much of the conversation amongst elders, and it's just like, they need to stop making that trash and this negative thing. And it's going. I was like, no, you gotta allow people the space to say what they say. Now, if they caught up in this, like, you know, cycle of repeating themselves, I think that's something we should investigate. But, like, I think we need listeners in order for the performer to be able to move on to making a new song. And when they don't feel like no one's heard them, they just keep making the same song over again. It gets bad. But we love them, so we try to, you know, support, but we. We want them to, you know, grow.
- [49:52]
B
So the book has now been out in the world for a little bit. Has anything. Has it. Has it being in the world taught you anything?
- [50:07]
A
Yes. I did write a little bit about it in this piece on my medium called how to Sample and Stretch a Prison Break, A Prelude to the Attica Blues. And it could be my new project. I'm looking at Archie Shep's Attica Blues album and Prison Abolition. And as a sort of like, Concept. But I start with. So this book, like, I said something about, like, it's sort of like place center, you know, nature. We released it. I organized an event at the local Free Library on 52nd street in West Philadelphia, which is like the sort of like, used to be known as the Strip. It's sort of like the black main business district of West Philadelphia. I then, you know, did it in Chester at my. In my home library. The school teachers in the school district asked me for copies. I was able to sort of gift copies. My old high school teacher, who is now sort of like the unofficial black historian for the city of Chester, she said, send me a copy, and she's going to put up in the black history display. My cousin the barber, last time I saw him, man, you know, yeah, I still got them, man. You know, people don't read nowadays. We got. I got five books still over here. So he's selling the books out of the barbershop. My cousins. I just. I was wanting to give them copies. He was like, no, here's $20. Look, give them the money, take the money, blah, blah, blah. And. And I guess where I'm. Where I'm going with that is like, the importance of the village. And I talk about this in a book of, like, one of my issues with, you know, current black writing is you don't feel that, like, it's the mainstream publishers and all. It gets very commercialized or commodified in a ways that doesn't feel or I can't readily sort of come back home. You know, it's these. It feels like an Internet conversation. I'm not always sure where it's happening in place. And who is the, you know, like the. The primary audience of such in a way that like a. A rap album, you know, like, I don't know the Game and yg, they had that, you know, versus two weeks ago. You're like, no, this is for them. This is for this community here. And I'm just like that. I want that in our writing. And just the. The. The sense of, I think, like, fulfillment and a bit of like, oh, there was no distribution channel. We had to make the distribution channels based on our connection to community. Hakeem's Bookstore. This is the oldest black bookstore on the East Coast. I work there. I hang out there a lot. I'm talking to Wick, Kareem, and we're like, yo, where should our book go? There's Langston Hughes on this wall. There's James Baldwin on this wall. There's Walter Rodney on this wall, there is like Toni Morrison on this wall, there is WB Du Bois on this wall. We get a chance to put our book next to one of these in the oldest black bookstore on the East Coast. Like that is. It's like those small moments, you know, it really makes it work and also to me, generates the opportunity for like publishing at scale or that, like the scale of the village is the scale that we're attempting to work within and figure out how to like grow it and expand it.
- [53:48]
B
Well, we want people to grab a copy of the book. They can contact their local black owned bookstore or local indie or online indie or online bookstore. The book is My City Needs Something. Portraits and Prose for Black Existence by Christopher R. Rogers with photographs from Kari Brown. You can find Chris on Instagram at just maybe. Chris, you've been listening to Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Sommer, a new books network podcast, and I'm your host, Sullivan Sommer. If you like what you heard, like, follow and drop us a rating on your favorite podcast app. We're on Instagram additionstothearxive, and we're free over on substack2, where Chris and I are headed right now to continue our conversation. Thank you for listening to Additions to the Archive.