Def Poetry - Julian Curry - Niggers Niggas & Niggaz

The prevalence of the ugly word among blacks in America.

Give it up for Julian Curry!

[applause]

What's up my niggas?

[laughter]

I said, what's up my niggas?

[incoherent responses from audience]

That was a trick question

And it's nice to see that the tricky ones haven't tricked most of y'all

into the answer. You see nigga's been passed through our families

generation to generation like cancer.

It used to be said by slave masters

who weren't in the business of breeding no dancing niggas.

They only wanted good old field niggas.

But I wonder how the field nigga would feel

if he was sitting next to me on the A-train at approximately 3 o'clock

any day of the week, and he heard his little great-great-grandson speak

dozens if not hundreds of times, from fifty-ninth street to west fourth

the word the made black families pack up in the South and move North?

Would he slam a couple of these boys against the doors

and ask: "What's the deal nigga? Do you think you're keeping it real nigga?

Do you know how I was killed nigga? They murdered me with hot rods of steel, nigga.

Now how do you think this makes me feel, nigga?"

Or would he just sit there, and listen, silently

like white people do. Silently like I do, silently like we all do.

So what do I do? I go down to Wall Street. Do you know why they call it Wall street?

Because centuries ago there were these huge high walls, and

down on the street, slaves with shackles on their feets were gonna be bought and sold by

the fleet like shares of Intel. Phrases shouted daily like "Where's my niggers?"

"There's my niggers."

"Who's niggers are those?"

Now here we are centuries after slavery

and insulting our ancestors bravely, by shouting

phrases daily like: "where's my nigga? Whaddup nigga?"

"You know you my nigga, right?"

So don't blame the boys on the A-Train

blame the men that put the myth it was okay to say it in their brain.

Blame the kings of comedy, the all-time Nigga record-holders,

put the blame on Quentin Tarantino's shoulders, and hopefully this nigga

nigga, nigga poem is making you uncomfortable to the point where you're cracking

your neck and staring at the ground, looking to your left and your right to see if there's any white people around

helping you realize that you've been bamboozled

if you have to wear blackface to be a clown.

But I gotta go now, I gotta go now, I gotta go now, I gotta get this poem in the hands of the artist

formerly known as Prince now,

because when it comes to talent ain't, nobody's bigger,

and maybe this poem can be the gun and its voice can be the trigger,

and we can collaborate and figure a way to convince Jigga

to help us find a new dream song, our new theme song,

and call it "The People Formerly Known as Niggas."

[cheering, applause]