Idris Goodwin
The RAPstation Interview
By Kyle Eustice
HBO Def Jam spoken word poet, award-winning playwright, educator, and emcee Idris Goodwin spent six months steadily writing material for his new album, Rhyming While Black. The Colorado Springs transplant spits with honesty, conviction and passion, which in turn makes powerful hip-hop music. Goodwin isn't rapping about materialistic matters, he's addressing race, politics and his role in hip-hop culture.
From the very Public Enemy-inspired album opener, "Ode to the Mic" to "Culture Wars" and closer "Still Got It," Rhyming While Black is brimming with neo boom-bap flavor and classic, hard-hitting bass. The album was partially funded through an Indiegogo campaign. "The crowd funding approach is really gratifying," Goodwin says. "To have folks invest in you directly in that way is really inspiring and encouraging. I think it makes the work that much better." And it shows. Rhyming While Black is Goodwin's most solid effort to date. Sister Layla Goodwin and former student Denali Gillaspie lay down some soulful hooks while adding dimension and weight. Through humor, poignant insight and fury, he explores the current anxieties existing within black America. Goodwin took some time out of his busy schedule to discuss the album title, race and who Idris Goodwin is.
RAPstation (Kyle Eustice): Rhyming While Black is a bold title. What does the word "black" mean in today's culture?
Black is paradoxical. This country loves black music and expression, but has no patience for black frustration and lament. Blacks are encouraged to be "American," to think of themselves as no different from anyone, but constantly reminded they are. Whiteness is still considered the norm and while that remains the case Black will always mean the opposite of white.
Do you think people are scared to have the race conversation?
I don't know if it's fear so much as its discomfort. Race is complicated, but also nebulous and relative to some. Some don't live a life where race is ever an issue for them so when it comes up the response is to disengage. They think that somehow participating in a race conversation they will reveal their own race based prejudices. Also, most are woefully miseducated on the United States's racial history. People think it's about slavery, naw it's about everything since. This is a country that incarcerates an insane amount of black and Latino. Some would have us believe it's because blacks and Latinos are just inherently more criminal. When cops kill unarmed black kids and people get upset the response is to posit a notion that if he was dressed like his fave rapper he deserved it. This is some racist bullshit derived from a deep seeded misunderstanding of black life.
I've never cared about people's color. Never. Why does it seem so ingrained in our society to judge based on little or no knowledge of a person's character? To me, if you're a good person, I'm down.
I think a great deal of people are like you or aspire to be, but unfortunately the society we were born into, that we walk and work within was conceived far before we were We were built on centuries of slavery, imperialism, inequity and inequality there are systemic, engrained paradigms and institutions that perpetuate a white supremacist patriarchal modus operandi. It creates an innocuous superiority complex, an idea of what is normal. Anything that scrapes against that makes people uncomfortable. Our nature is to keep things as they are even if it means some other people have to suffer. When I was younger I very ignorant to all sorts of issues until enough people challenged and schooled me otherwise. I was willing to accept and unpack my mis-education. That's what has to happen. People gotta stop trying to hang onto their lazy ideas and do some work. This is how things change.
Tell me about the making of this record.
I saw that picture of the young black man in dreads with his hands up facing a whole team of heavily armed soldiers on the streets of Ferguson. I immediately started writing the song "Speak for Itself." I recorded it the next day with my homie Diles. From there, I just kept working. I work in a pretty unglamorous straightforward way. I solicit beats from a wide array of producers I know across the country; folks I have worked with for years and folks I just want to work with. It's very straight forward. I get the beats. I spend time listening for a while. I get a concept and I write. I knew I wanted to collab with some female vocalists on this, namely my sister Layla who for the past few years would ask, 'When you gonna put me on something?' Finally I was like, 'How's next week sound?' I recorded at Central Root Studio in Albuquerque with my homie Diles who produced two jams on Rhyming While Black. I also recorded at Right Heel Studios in Colorado Springs. My man Justin J. Mayer mixed and mastered the whole thing at Hoffman Sound and Jira Productions in Chicago.
What messages do you hope to get across with your music?
I feel like I cover a lot of ground so I couldn't really boil it down. Everybody is gonna hear something different you know. That's the hope, that it sparks something. Even if just a head nod.
How does your teaching career influence your writing? Does it make you feel more socially responsibility to these kids?
I grew up on BDP/KRS ONE, Public Enemy, Rakim, Queen Latifah, A Tribe Called Quest and Gang Starr. All these artists stressed the importance of intelligence. They were mad cool. Fearless. I could dance to it BUT at the core was knowledge. Even NWA starts their song "You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge" It's about unfiltered communication of experience. Vocabulary. Ideas. Theories. Bold statements. That's what my foundation is built on. I never made a super conscious decision to approach hip-hop in a certain way. I just believe the best hip hop music is personal. And as close to the true life of the artist as possible. I write what I know. Teaching makes me a better artist and person.
You've been all over the country. How does your travel inspire you as a human being? As an artist?
I am a performance guy. I do hip-hop, spoken word, plays, I teach. I like the energy of the live show; the collective gathering. This is the roots of it; folks gathering to hear the good news. I travel to spread the work, to meet collaborators. I also love all of the diversity of this country; not just racial or ethnic, but regionally.
What's your favorite track on the new record and why?
Tough call. I'd say that "Get Over It" is pretty special to me. It's very personal, but I feel like it really gets at the emotion and collective lament of folks everywhere. Also, I got to work with my sister on it and her voice is gorgeous. It was produced by one of my long time homies DJ Alo from Chicago. He built the track around the vocals actually, which is pretty rare for me.
What do you hope to accomplish in 2015?
Just keep it moving, you know? I want to perform material from this album as much as possible. I'll be doing some dates around the country. I also have five plays being produced at different theaters across the country. I am featured in a really exciting anthology dropping on Haymarket Books called Break Beat Poets focused on poets of the hip-hop generation. This is what I do you know. I'm a working artist. So just wanna keep putting thoughts in the air.
Who is Idris Goodwin?
I'm black.
Idris Goodwin: The RAPstation Interview
Idris Goodwin
The RAPstation Interview
By Kyle Eustice
HBO Def Jam spoken word poet, award-winning playwright, educator, and emcee Idris Goodwin spent six months steadily writing material for his new album, Rhyming While Black. The Colorado Springs transplant spits with honesty, conviction and passion, which in turn makes powerful hip-hop music. Goodwin isn't rapping about materialistic matters, he's addressing race, politics and his role in hip-hop culture.
From the very Public Enemy-inspired album opener, "Ode to the Mic" to "Culture Wars" and closer "Still Got It," Rhyming While Black is brimming with neo boom-bap flavor and classic, hard-hitting bass. The album was partially funded through an Indiegogo campaign. "The crowd funding approach is really gratifying," Goodwin says. "To have folks invest in you directly in that way is really inspiring and encouraging. I think it makes the work that much better." And it shows. Rhyming While Black is Goodwin's most solid effort to date. Sister Layla Goodwin and former student Denali Gillaspie lay down some soulful hooks while adding dimension and weight. Through humor, poignant insight and fury, he explores the current anxieties existing within black America. Goodwin took some time out of his busy schedule to discuss the album title, race and who Idris Goodwin is.
RAPstation (Kyle Eustice): Rhyming While Black is a bold title. What does the word "black" mean in today's culture?
Black is paradoxical. This country loves black music and expression, but has no patience for black frustration and lament. Blacks are encouraged to be "American," to think of themselves as no different from anyone, but constantly reminded they are. Whiteness is still considered the norm and while that remains the case Black will always mean the opposite of white.
Do you think people are scared to have the race conversation?
I don't know if it's fear so much as its discomfort. Race is complicated, but also nebulous and relative to some. Some don't live a life where race is ever an issue for them so when it comes up the response is to disengage. They think that somehow participating in a race conversation they will reveal their own race based prejudices. Also, most are woefully miseducated on the United States's racial history. People think it's about slavery, naw it's about everything since. This is a country that incarcerates an insane amount of black and Latino. Some would have us believe it's because blacks and Latinos are just inherently more criminal. When cops kill unarmed black kids and people get upset the response is to posit a notion that if he was dressed like his fave rapper he deserved it. This is some racist bullshit derived from a deep seeded misunderstanding of black life.
I've never cared about people's color. Never. Why does it seem so ingrained in our society to judge based on little or no knowledge of a person's character? To me, if you're a good person, I'm down.
I think a great deal of people are like you or aspire to be, but unfortunately the society we were born into, that we walk and work within was conceived far before we were We were built on centuries of slavery, imperialism, inequity and inequality there are systemic, engrained paradigms and institutions that perpetuate a white supremacist patriarchal modus operandi. It creates an innocuous superiority complex, an idea of what is normal. Anything that scrapes against that makes people uncomfortable. Our nature is to keep things as they are even if it means some other people have to suffer. When I was younger I very ignorant to all sorts of issues until enough people challenged and schooled me otherwise. I was willing to accept and unpack my mis-education. That's what has to happen. People gotta stop trying to hang onto their lazy ideas and do some work. This is how things change.
Tell me about the making of this record.
I saw that picture of the young black man in dreads with his hands up facing a whole team of heavily armed soldiers on the streets of Ferguson. I immediately started writing the song "Speak for Itself." I recorded it the next day with my homie Diles. From there, I just kept working. I work in a pretty unglamorous straightforward way. I solicit beats from a wide array of producers I know across the country; folks I have worked with for years and folks I just want to work with. It's very straight forward. I get the beats. I spend time listening for a while. I get a concept and I write. I knew I wanted to collab with some female vocalists on this, namely my sister Layla who for the past few years would ask, 'When you gonna put me on something?' Finally I was like, 'How's next week sound?' I recorded at Central Root Studio in Albuquerque with my homie Diles who produced two jams on Rhyming While Black. I also recorded at Right Heel Studios in Colorado Springs. My man Justin J. Mayer mixed and mastered the whole thing at Hoffman Sound and Jira Productions in Chicago.
What messages do you hope to get across with your music?
I feel like I cover a lot of ground so I couldn't really boil it down. Everybody is gonna hear something different you know. That's the hope, that it sparks something. Even if just a head nod.
How does your teaching career influence your writing? Does it make you feel more socially responsibility to these kids?
I grew up on BDP/KRS ONE, Public Enemy, Rakim, Queen Latifah, A Tribe Called Quest and Gang Starr. All these artists stressed the importance of intelligence. They were mad cool. Fearless. I could dance to it BUT at the core was knowledge. Even NWA starts their song "You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge" It's about unfiltered communication of experience. Vocabulary. Ideas. Theories. Bold statements. That's what my foundation is built on. I never made a super conscious decision to approach hip-hop in a certain way. I just believe the best hip hop music is personal. And as close to the true life of the artist as possible. I write what I know. Teaching makes me a better artist and person.
You've been all over the country. How does your travel inspire you as a human being? As an artist?
I am a performance guy. I do hip-hop, spoken word, plays, I teach. I like the energy of the live show; the collective gathering. This is the roots of it; folks gathering to hear the good news. I travel to spread the work, to meet collaborators. I also love all of the diversity of this country; not just racial or ethnic, but regionally.
What's your favorite track on the new record and why?
Tough call. I'd say that "Get Over It" is pretty special to me. It's very personal, but I feel like it really gets at the emotion and collective lament of folks everywhere. Also, I got to work with my sister on it and her voice is gorgeous. It was produced by one of my long time homies DJ Alo from Chicago. He built the track around the vocals actually, which is pretty rare for me.
What do you hope to accomplish in 2015?
Just keep it moving, you know? I want to perform material from this album as much as possible. I'll be doing some dates around the country. I also have five plays being produced at different theaters across the country. I am featured in a really exciting anthology dropping on Haymarket Books called Break Beat Poets focused on poets of the hip-hop generation. This is what I do you know. I'm a working artist. So just wanna keep putting thoughts in the air.
Who is Idris Goodwin?
I'm black.
