MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
One way to understand a city is through its art scene. Growing up, writer and critic Lawrence Burney was immersed in his hometown Baltimore's creative side following his musician mother and grandfather to their shows. So going to these shows was routine, but he does remember one in particular, when they opened for the legendary Gil Scott-Heron in 1998.
(SOUNDBITE OF GIL SCOTT-HERON SONG, "THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED")
LAWRENCE BURNEY: Just another gig that they dragged me along to. Obviously, I didn't know where I was going. But it was something different this time, where I felt like this guy, whoever he was - really lanky, older guy. I remember the gravity that he pulled from people in the audience. You know, you just kind of - you can observe when somebody is somebody.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED")
GIL SCOTT-HERON: Because the revolution will not be televised.
BURNEY: As I got older and started looking up his music, I'm like, oh, this guy's really cool. And it made me think my mother was cool because I'm like, OK, if you opened up for this guy, maybe you were doing something that I should find pride in.
KELLY: Burney has a new essay collection out. It's titled "No Sense In Wishing." And he recently spoke with my cohost, Juana Summers, about it. He recalled the impact Gil Scott-Heron had on him as a young boy, and how the album "Winter In America" still resonates today.
BURNEY: I think it's just really a really beautiful assessment of the Black American condition in the 1970s. I think a lot of Gil Scott-Heron's music obviously deals with the aftermath of people coming back from combat, people coming home expecting certain promises of being set up for a fruitful life. But it didn't happen for people in Black communities, and that led to drug abuse and high levels of poverty. And I think Gil Scott-Heron was really good at peeling back the layers of people's complexities.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PEACE GO WITH YOU, BROTHER (AS-SALAAM-ALAIKUM)")
SCOTT-HERON: (Singing) Peace. Peace go with you, brother. Peace.
BURNEY: As a society, we have a bad tendency of kind of writing off people we look at as undesirables...
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Yeah.
BURNEY: ...Or people who deal with addiction, as if they spent their whole lives addicted. But I think we kind of graze over the fact that there are things that led to that point. You know, people lose their way. They find easy ways to cope. And I think Gil Scott-Heron was really good at identifying the emotional depth of what leads a person to that place.
SUMMERS: You are the founder of True Laurels, which is a platform dedicated to highlighting Baltimore and this region's music, its visual arts and cultures. You started it back in 2013. What did you want to show the people outside Baltimore, to show folks about what's going on in the cultural life in Baltimore City that you feel like people weren't just getting any exposure to or perhaps weren't trying to get exposure to?
BURNEY: One thing I've encountered in the art scenes in Baltimore - it's a little different now, but when I was coming up, I think a lot of people are given the message as they grow up that if you want to make something of yourself, you have to get out of here. And I think the media platforms that were available at that time weren't really digging into the Black neighborhoods. And I just saw an opportunity. I saw a gap. So I feel like True Laurels was my attempt at, I guess, kind of reimagining the fanzine, but for Black people, basically (laughter).
SUMMERS: You talked about how people always get told in Baltimore that you got to get out if you want to make something of yourself. If you want to grow, if you want to continue to build, you have to leave. I wonder, Lawrence, if you could tell us the story of somebody who stayed and made it, somebody who's native to Baltimore.
BURNEY: There's an essay in the book called "Two Pillars," and there are two rappers. One is named Young Moose. The other, his name is Lor Scoota. In the early 2010s, they both kind of broke out on the local scene. And I think they were really gifted storytellers. And they were really gifted at being messengers for what the average youth in inner-city Baltimore was experiencing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DUMB DUMB")
YOUNG MOOSE: (Rapping) They see me. They like, dumb, dumb. They like, dumb, dumb. They see me. They like, dumb, dumb.
BURNEY: Young Moose is from the east side. He talked about, obviously, growing up with the challenges of poverty. His grandmother was murdered in a home invasion. He talked about police harassment. And I think that's why people loved him so much. So you have Moose. You have Lor Scoota, who's from the west side. He's from Pennsylvania Avenue, which is a really historical part of Black Baltimore.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BIRD FLU")
LOR SCOOTA: (Rapping) Achoo, my city got the bird flu. It's game time. I think we need a ring or two.
BURNEY: Obviously, that Pennsylvania Avenue changed a lot after the late '60s, with the riots that were related to MLK's assassination. A lot of white flight took place. A lot of businesses followed. And then a lot of dilapidation and just kind of divestment followed. And I think Lor Scoota was kind of a loudspeaker for the new Pennsylvania Avenue.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BIRD FLU")
LOR SCOOTA: (Rapping) You know what I rap. Today, I got on orange and my black baseball bat. The O's game on, I'm watching...
SUMMERS: You are from Baltimore. And as somebody who didn't grow up there but has lived there for more than a decade at this point, when I was flipping through your book and reading these essays, so many of them read like a love letter to the city, as imperfect as it is, and its culture and the people who live there. And in one of the essays, called "A Love Letter To Steamed Crabs Piled Onto A Bed Of Newspaper," you write about the ritual of picking crabs, which is so familiar to many in the region. But you call it almost like communion for people who were raised along the Chesapeake. Talk about that essay.
BURNEY: Growing up in this region, crabs are just like - it's a rite of passage. I think while I was kind of ruminating on that tradition, I wanted to dig deeper because, you know, just as any tradition, especially any American tradition, I find that if you dig deep enough, there's some sort of tragedy or some sort of tough route that led to people being able to enjoy this thing that's kind of - I would say it's indicative of the state of Maryland. I would say it's definitely, like, the mascot.
SUMMERS: Yeah.
BURNEY: I was just thinking about it, and I started digging into some history. And I was reading Frederick Douglass' first autobiography. And I was like, this is really interesting, that the way that he achieved his freedom was by borrowing a friend's sailor's outfit and a seaman's certificate. For those that don't know, a seaman's certificate was a document that people who worked on the water -whether that be catching oysters or crabs or even helping build vessels - if you had this certificate, it essentially acted as freedom papers pre-abolition of slavery.
And I think Baltimore was interesting at that time because it had, I believe, the highest - the largest population of freed Black Americans. But it also still had an enslaved population. So I think, you know, it just made me think about, like, you never know the lengths that people had to go for you to enjoy this thing that you just don't even think about.
SUMMERS: Writer and culture critic Lawrence Burney. His collection of essays, "No Sense In Wishing," is out now. Thank you so much.
BURNEY: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF GIL SCOTT-HERON'S "RIVERS OF MY FATHERS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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