Since 1997, students and community residents from all over the Triangle have gathered at the East Campus Coffeehouse Wednesday or Thursday nights to revel in the most universal of art forms: poetry. Dissatisfied with the mainstream social scenes and lack of cultural outlets on campus, Kelsy Davis, Trinity '99, helped found The Blue Roach to foster a community of writers, performers and creative supporters. After losing steam last year, The Blue Roach has recently been reincarnated with an appropriate new name: The Phoenix. With open mic nights every other Wednesday and local and national performers scheduled each month, The Phoenix is rising. Recess Arts Editor Vicki Kaplan sat down with Ashanti Crawford, one of The Phoenix's coordinators (Alana Jones is the other), to discuss The Phoenix and its relationship to the commercialization of spoken word and hip hop.
It seems like everything The Phoenix goes through is deeply connected with its history and the history of the people that work on it.
Yeah, it's connected to people that just appreciate the arts. And it's frustrating because, especially this year, it seems like overall there's a lack of interest in things other than parties. That's kind of where I understand why spoken word and hip hop have become commercialized, because this is a beautiful art form and you want to share it with people. But then it's like, "To what extent do you go to not compromise the art?" I want to reach a bigger pool, but am I going against the whole purpose of starting? I'm kind of neutral.
So how do you balance your wanting to keep it as the counterculture that it is, but also trying to reach people?
I'm working on it! I feel like the people that are really down with the original cause should support it. But in order to let people know, you have to have a gimmick sometimes. What's frustrating is that we spend good money to bring people down here, and you want people to be there so at a certain time you have to kind of commercialize it. It's great to have your regulars but you still want to reach more people.
Do you feel that The Phoenix fosters a genuine community?
I still don't feel like it's as close as the original group was. I don't even know if it can get back there. But I know there are lots of people [interested], so that once it gets organized it's highly possible that it could become more of a collective group.
As for the open mic, do you generally get the same people performing or is it different every time?
There are some people that you can basically guarantee are going to perform, and there are other people that you want to encourage 'cause you know they write poems.... It's cool when you have a feature artist who really gets the crowd going so they're like, "I'll do this." I want it to be that open environment where people feel welcome to express their talent or whatever their love or passion is in any kind of way, whether it's music, singing, rap, poetry, whatever.
Do you write or perform at all?
I'm more of a fun person; I'm not really on that deep level. I'd like to be - I'm working on it. And that's one of the benefits of The Phoenix: It brings political awareness to issues that I never would have been exposed to.
Do you think of The Phoenix as part of Duke or a community that's separate from it?
I feel like it has a good history at Duke, and if we get it organized and come back consistent like it was, it could really become an integral part of Duke. But for the most part the people that are really supportive are more in the [Durham] community.
So it's mostly not Duke students.
Right. And that's where you get into commercializing it. You have people that will support it, but also your school is sponsoring this, so come out! We want you to come. We want to reach everyone... It's like music. It's an avenue that transcends cross-culturally, across genders, sexual preferences. I want to foster more unity.... I appreciate it because it creates dialogue. It's a healthy way to talk about issues instead of, "I just don't like you because..." Whether or not you agree with it, you have to respect that they have their reasons, you have your reasons.
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