Check it out:
http://www.slambush.net
Last month I went to one of these events in St. Louis. Hundreds of people and they were bringin the noise, know what I'm saying? Everybody was looking good, especially the ladies, and there was many of them.
It's a nationwide contest. The one I went to was sponsored by The League of Pissed Off Voters.
http://www.indyvoter.org
People were passing through the crowd with voter registration and petitions. It was down.
There were about 15 contestants, the emcee was totally money, and there was some goofball with a Bush mask on, and people would take turns getting in his face.
It was funny, it was angry, it was poignant. It was rappers, hip-hoppers, freestylers, and def poets. Some went with the beat, some acapella, it was their choice.
They did it in rounds, fronting off on each other and on Bush, and the winner was a freestyler named Cash. He was flowing. For the last round he had Bush get up on the mike, and he stood behind him and made pretend like Bush was rapping to the crowd. I don't remember all he said, but it was something like:
Yo, I stole the election
And you can suck my erection
Cuz I got the Patriot Act
And if you try to talk back
I'll send all you bastards
To fight in Iraq.
It was very creative, and the crowd was howling.
There was another guy who was flowing about the class war that I really liked to, something about
lissen up people
We at war
In case you don't know
There's two gangs, yo
The rich and the poor
I wish I remember more. Cash won 500 dollars and a trip to the finals in Miami. That's all I remember.
Peace
By the way I'm a 50 year old white guy, so I'm kinda lame, but this is an event not to be missed if it comes to your area. Best spoken word performance I've seen in years. Way better than Def Poetry, and I think that is superb.