From the AV Club Chicago
At turns lyrical and fierce, the work of hip-hop poet Kevin Coval is intrinsically a product of Chicago. Coval's latest collection of poetry, Everyday People, is a paean to the city where he earned his chops, attending basement hip-hop shows as a teen and honing his skills under the tutelage of hometown heavyweights like Reggie Gibson and Dan Ferry. Coval is as accomplished as a poet working in 2008 could reasonably be, but he stays true to his roots, still calling Chicago his home and encouraging the next generation of writers through Louder Than A Bomb, the youth poetry festival he founded. Before the Thursday release of People at Quimby's, Decider spoke with Coval about his roots in the Chicago hip-hop community and how the city's working-class drives artistic growth.
Decider: How did you first get involved in the Chicago hip-hop community?
Kevin Coval: I grew up in the suburbs and became aware that if I wanted to hear hip-hop music I would have to go to Chicago. I would get bootleg tapes at the old Maxwell Street—before it was paved over in University Village—and it was through some of the stores and vendors there that I began to hear about an indigenous music scene.
One of the first DJs I went to listen to was Jesse De La Pena. He had a Monday night set called Blue Group Lounge. That was one of the first spots I went to in Chicago once I got my fake ID at 18. That was sort of an entry into seeing Chicago hip-hop artists—MCs that are still around like Dirty M.F., they would freestyle some sets. At the end of the night, there would also be local MCs or other artists on tour—I saw Redman freestyle there, and other national artists. It was really that Monday night set that really became a regular mecca for me.
D: When you started out, were you trying to rap or was poetry always your focus?
KC: I didn't know anyone who made beats, so it was all a capella. I was off-beat more than anything, so people called it poetry or spoken word. By the time I first read at an open mic in Chicago—this is about '96—I had left the idea of being a traditional MC and thought of myself as more of a poet. Some of the first spots I went to as an artist, knowing that I had verse in my backpack and if called upon, I could read at an open mic.
There was a set down the street on Monday nights that I started to go to at the Mad Bar, where Cans is now. They had a poetry night, and then after the poetry night they had hip-hop night. That was one of the first places I became a regular at. They sent a couple of teams to the National Poetry Slam, and I was on one of those teams. In some ways, that was my real entrance into Chicago's spoken-word poetry scene.
D: What is it about Chicago’s poetry and hip-hop scene that keeps you coming back, even as you travel around and tour?
KC: I think the quality of the writer's craft in Chicago is—I would argue—higher than anywhere in the country. There's no real recording or publishing industry in Chicago, so if you are a writer or MC or poet in Chicago, you do it out of love and necessity. There is a growing audience in Chicago for Chicago-grown hip-hop and poetry, but the best MCs in Chicago are delivering mail or [are] school teachers or lawyers. They're not driving in Escalades; they're working like the rest of the city works. Being an artist in Chicago means that you are part of the working-class culture. Your art becomes a product of your labor, so if you keep working at that, you become better and better—writers are made, not born.
No one cares in Chicago that you do art. You tell someone in Chicago you do art, and they will encourage you to make their cheeseburger medium rare. No one really believes that you can make it as an artist. Theatre in Chicago is diverse because you have storefront theatres that will put out avant-garde or classical plays because they have a love for the form. I think the same kind of work ethic infiltrates the hip-hop and spoken word community too.
