Hip-Hop, Poetry, and Purpose
St. Paul poet Tish Jones draws inspiration from Black culture, ancestors, and everyday moments to create powerful poetry rooted in social justice. Through TruArtSpeaks, the organization she founded in 2006, Jones empowers with literacy, leadership skills, and cultural pride through hip-hop and spoken word.
In elementary school, Tish Jones was introduced to playwriting. Her science teacher created an extracurricular activity for students to produce a play, and Jones remembers having to choose between a murder mystery piece and “Rap-punzel.”
“I’m a child of hip-hop,” Jones said. “I grew up listening to hip-hop, meeting hip-hop artists via my auntie and my mama and I obviously wanted to do ‘Rap-punzel,’but everybody else … wanted a banana gun, they was on the murder mystery tip.”
Jones made a deal with her teacher: she’d participate in the murder mystery with everyone else if she could take home a copy of “Rap-punzel.”
“That was the first time that I saw hip-hop outside of emceeing and dancing and graffiti,” Jones said. “I saw it enter into another world that spoke to me in terms of literature and theater and production.”
In life and poetry, Jones said she draws inspiration from Black people, her ancestors, and children.
“I’m writing when I’m thinking, poetry happens in my mind,” she said.
Jones described a recent incident that is inspiring a new piece. For the first time in her life, she ran out of gas. As her friend arrived with help, a man sitting on a utility bucket, waiting for the bus, offered advice and assistance.
From that interaction, Jones saw beauty: a man showing kindness, beauty in Black struggle, and the common language connecting them. She asks herself, “why doesn’t he have a bus stop to sit at?”
Her work often explores social justice issues, and Jones said her poetry requires constant research and learning.
“I’m a nerd, I love language, I love writing, I love learning.”
For Jones, it was important to use art to educate, especially as someone who went through St. Paul Public Schools. She knows the challenges children of color face and said culturally relevant teaching draws students in.
“If you can speak the cultural language of the folks you’re working with, the retention is higher,” she said.
Jones founded TruArtSpeaks in 2006. Based in St. Paul, the organization celebrates its 20th year cultivating literacy, leadership, and social justice through spoken word and hip-hop culture.
TruArtSpeaks emphasizes Black cultural practices as tools for liberation, education, and preservation, Jones said.
“This work is important to me because it has kept me and I’ve seen this work keep others, right? I’ve seen it be a pathway to professionalism, to leadership, to collegiate and academic journeys, professional journeys.”
Sunday dinner is one of TruArtSpeaks’ most impactful projects, Jones said. During the coronavirus pandemic, the organization hosted spaces for people to gather and distributed paid-for meals.
“Those culture-keeping initiatives that we’ve created keep us well, keep us in the tradition of Black cultural practices, keep us in our ways. The things that literally keep us well and have raised us and reared us as Black people and remind us of how important it is to be together and get together and just be.”
Jones lives, thinks, and breathes poetry, she said.
“The work… This work for me is like an opportunity to celebrate everything that is Black… Genius, being, humor, wellness, lineage. All of the above.”
Learn more at tishjonespoet.com and truartspeaks.org.
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Damenica Ellis welcomes reader responses at dellis@spokesman-recorder.com.