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(MUSIC).
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I'm always hearing music in my head.
It's how I live.
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(MUSIC) Music and words literally do just
ride together.
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And I'm always looking for what song
represents these words.
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I really never thought that it would
necessarily happen to me, that I would
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have a song that's like a internet You
Tube sensation.
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With the presence of the internet, with
the presence of these tools of the mobile
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world, it's a new audience.
You know, it's a new audience that are
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checking out the body of work that I've
been producing for the past ten years.
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(MUSIC) There's so many different ways to
use that technology for where we are now,
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to get that word out to a global
audience.
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You know?
The global audience wasn't an option for me.
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In terms of how I thought about where my,
music was going to take me.
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| 01:01 |
Or where my poems would take me.
I definitely used to think a bit more local.
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(MUSIC) I know that it, it began here.
And my Dad was always playing Fela Kuti,
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and there was always rhythms going on.
rhythms that I didn't really understand
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at first.
My parents used to take us to concerts
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that would come through here, touring
Nigerian musicians.
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I know that, that was a seed for me.
You know?
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To see a big band live, playing and
everyone dancing.
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It's like, you know, my parents saying
that this is where we come from, and
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it's, it's a powerful thing for a child
to be told that, that your blood is this.
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Male: Would you give a warm witZend
welcome to lyeoka?
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Lyeoka: (MUSIC) (NOISE) Well listen to
this.
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It's just so the work out.
Driving the nate, I'm on the road tonight.
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Trying to get back home to you, you
probably worry, the way men like you do.
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Thank you.
(MUSIC) Boston is one of the hubs of slam poetry.
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When I was in college, it was the first
time that I actually was involved in a
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slam at Northeastern University.
I challenged myself to start memorizing
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my work, because I didn't really do that
at first.
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It takes me a really, really long time to
memorize anything.
|
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Anything that is not like pharmaceutical
terms in, in science.
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because I was in college then, going for
my degree in pharmacy.
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And once that happened, I started feeling
the confidence of being able to embody
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what I was trying to communicate to an
audience, and I would find myself on stage.
|
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Male: (MUSIC) Ladies and Gentlemen, a
nice round of applause.
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We're glad to have her back in the house.
This is her home.
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Welcome home, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Iyeoka Okoawo.
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Lyeoka: I believe that we have 365 days
to change.
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Somebody say word.
All: Word.
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Lyeoka: To change our altitudes.
To change our attitudes.
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I had my start at the Lizard lounge, and
it was a place to grow.
|
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It was, it was a place to, to build, and
it definitely allowed me to meet a lot of people.
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A lot of people that came through.
So in the ten years that I would go to
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the Lizard Lounge pretty much every
Sunday night.
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You know community was formed of very
unique voices, but people that were
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consistent with wanting to use the word
as a ritual.
|
| 04:04 |
You know something that you can
discipline yourself enough to keep coming
|
| 04:09 |
back, week after week.
So that's what the Lizard Lounge is to a
|
| 04:14 |
lot of people and for me, it's been a
stage.
|
| 04:18 |
It's been a weekly opportunity to
discipline myself to write a poem, or a
|
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song, or a hook every week.
To present with a live Jazz Band.
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(MUSIC).
I want to sing you a new song, a new
|
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song, I want to let go of old habits.
I want to break, want to show the world
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| 04:44 |
how to embrace the day with.
You know, going from high school to
|
| 04:51 |
college, to you know, working as a
pharmacist, in, to the real world into
|
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evolving into my musician self.
It's been a process in figuring out what
|
| 05:03 |
is the discipline in this.
What is, what is the discipline that, you
|
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know, that I've been trained to
understand my entire career as a person?
|
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And it's just that.
It's discipline.
|
| 05:18 |
(MUSIC) I'm on top of technology.
I like to test out a lot of different applications.
|
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With the drumming, there's the metronome
that I've used to keep me on beat.
|
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There's the Evernote.
You know, their motto is remember everything.
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And having so many ideas come forward as
often as it does, allows me to categorize
|
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all the different parts of of what I
want to preserve.
|
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I'm able to record all of my rehearsals.
I'm able to record all of my shows, my
|
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live shows.
I'm able to send it out to my musicians,
|
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so they can hear what we're creating.
You know, it really does allow me to
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| 06:00 |
communicate with, with others.
You know, with people that I'm
|
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co-creating with.
That I'm collaborating with.
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(MUSIC) The piano playing in the
background, with a drum beat of the day
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| 06:15 |
saying allelujah.
I want to sing you a new song, a new song.
|
| 06:26 |
I want to let go of old habits.
I want to break, I want to break, I
|
| 06:31 |
want to show the world how to embrace the
day.
|
| 06:35 |
Having an opportunity to spend time with
other musicians, you get to learn about
|
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what other, other people do.
In the consensus I've learned is, there's
|
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no way that you can get any better than
where you are, unless you practice it
|
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every day, to the point where it's not
practice really.
|
| 06:55 |
But this experience of ritual, knowing
that tomorrow's going to be there.
|
| 07:02 |
And what I want to do tomorrow is is I
want to do this again.
|
| 07:07 |
I want to present.
I want to write.
|
| 07:09 |
I want to sing.
I want to talk about the things that I
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| 07:12 |
want to be running on repeat in my mind.
I want to talk about being happy and grateful.
|
| 07:18 |
This really is a creative process.
(LAUGH) And yeah, I'm in the middle of it.
|
| 07:25 |
(MUSIC) Love song.
There goes my heart again.
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| 07:30 |
All of this time I thought we were
pretending.
|
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Nothing looks the same when your eyes are
open.
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Now you playin' these games.
Male and Female: (MUSIC) My heartbeat
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spinning, you.
Male and Female: Show me love, you show
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me love.
Show me everything my heart is capable of.
|
| 07:52 |
You reshape me like butterfly origami,
yeah.
|
| 07:59 |
Lyeoka: You have broken into my heart,
this time I feel, the blues have been
|
| 08:06 |
brought in, nothing can keep me away from
this feeling, I know I am, superly
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| 08:14 |
falling for you.
(MUSIC)
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