Victor Rodgers AKA Slangston Hughes AKA Slick Vic Low (among the many AKA’s) is a Baltimore poet, lyricist, mentor with some killer flow and a few personalities. Born in Pittsburgh, he moved to the Baltimore area around a decade ago, and has since made this one-of-a-kind city his home. On April 13th, Slangston sat down with us for a quick conversation about himself, Baltimore, and his philosophy on poetry (and life).
Slangston was feeling sporadic when we sat down to chat, his attention divided between the projects he was attempting to juggle. Mr. Hughes is a part of the Dewmore Initiative, a “community-based-organization dedicated to using art and community organizing as tools to increase community engagement in the greater Baltimore Community” (dewmorebmore.org). Dewmore began in 2013 with programs in high schools, middle schools, and prison systems. The program is currently working with over twenty schools in the Baltimore area, and is planning on including elementary schools. On April 16th, Dewmore will be putting on a FREE spoken word festival and competition, called LOUDER THAN A BOMB, at MICA for youth poets. The following day, Slangston will be performing in Slammageddon, competing for a spot on the Baltimore National Adult Slam Team that will compete at the National Poetry Slam in Atlanta. (Information for both events will be listed at the end).
The first thing to know about Slangston, is that there’s more than just one of him. The seemingly most public personalities are Slangston the poet, and Slick Vic Low the MC—the connection between the two personalities is evident in Slangston’s use of music for his poetry (check this https://www.reverbnation.com/slangstonhughes7/song/14490299-ghetto-griot). Even more evident, are his influences—Wu Tang Clan ain’t nothin’ to fuck with—with his punctuated and breathless flow, accented by the soulful and sometimes jazzy musical backgrounds. In middle school, Slangston would write using words from textbooks, dictionaries—words he said he didn’t even understand—in an effort to inject some Wu Tang into his lyrics. But that expansive vocabulary pays off in his poetry, adding a bit of “the Rza, the Gza, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon the Chef, U-God, Ghostface Killah, and the Method—M.E.T.H.O.D. Man” into his spoken word.
Ghetto Griot, a poem Slangston spits to a piano and drum beat, plays off of Wu Tang’s assonance-based style while injecting Slangston’s own political consciousness into the content. At one point, Slangston asks as the music cuts, “Wait, are you trying to fuck me in my ass? No really, are you trying to fuck me in my ass? Stop the poem.” It’s an abrupt phrase that intentionally disrupts the flow of the poem. Slangston describes the comment as an expression of his frustrations of dealing with white supremacy, specifically in non-profit organizations. There’s a disconnection between those in charge of the organizations (people who are predominantly white) and those they seek to help (disenfranchised and disadvantaged minorities)—especially when it’s time to cut a check for services rendered. That disconnection is observed even more starkly within Baltimore itself—neighborhoods that could not be more different racially or socioeconomically are situated within blocks of one another. And according to Slangston, it’s because of those drastic differences that Baltimore is the perfect guinea pig for gentrification experiments. But as he also points out, nothing ever seems to stick here, because of how unique Baltimore is. Slangston puts it in terms of poetry, “When you go to national slams, you see stuff that’s like—you hear stuff that sounds like New York in other places than New York, you hear west coast stuff in places other than the Westcoast. But nothing sounds like Baltimore.” And he’s right, Baltimore is solely and uniquely Baltimore.
This city has lent its spirit to every artist that comes here, from Chick Webb to Edgar Allen Poe, there’s an undeniable creative vibe in Baltimore. For Slangston, it seems to be something that has allowed for him to draw for more personal experiences. Slangston describes growing up angry while also in an angry environment—“coming from that space of being young and just wanting to scream, and then living somewhere where your life is like a scream”. Slangston related to Baltimore’s rage—“I was simultaneously able to write out my frustration, and Baltimore’s frustration”. In Slangston’s words, it allowed him to work passed his first two elements.
Every poets have an affinity for an element—Fire is rhythm and rhyme, water is emotion, wind is deep metaphor, earth is concrete concepts, and spirit is the purpose behind the writing, it’s the force. Slangston explains that we all have that first element, his was fire. When you start to hone your craft, a second complimentary element begins to develop. Wind was Slangston’s secondary element, and from Ghetto Griot, we can all see that he’s capable of “burning down the village”, but Slangston points out that it just can’t be wind making the fire bigger all the time. Throughout his life as a poet, Slangston strove for knowledge about history and politics in order to understand his own relation to those things, how to write about them, and how to change them, but he says he wasn’t opening himself entirely. “Political poems”—and writing about yourself can’t be anything but political—“are the last things to make sense. The personal poems are the most political, the core is who you are.” To push passed fire and wind and into the depths of emotion is difficult, “anger is always a secondary emotion, what’s beneath that?” And it’s not all about those negative emotions either, but about “the happiness that’s there in spite of the pain”. Baltimore was a dive into the deep end, and his explorations of Baltimore’s struggles only seem more intimate when laced with his own obstacles.
If you’re interested in attending LOUDER THAN A BOMB on April 16th, here’s the link to their facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1699670790304544/
Here’s the link to the adult Slammageddon on April 17th:
https://www.facebook.com/events/779520572180849/
And here’s a link to the Dewmore Initiative’s website and facebook:
http://www.dewmorebmore.org/
https://www.facebook.com/DewMoreBaltimore/
Interview conducted by Macaully Shields and Davon Palmer.
Davon Palmer is a junior at Baltimore City College.
Macaully Shields is a senior Writing Sems major at Hopkins.
Davon Palmer is a junior at Baltimore City College.
Macaully Shields is a senior Writing Sems major at Hopkins.
