密歇根新闻广播 底特律MC让你跳舞并领略种族,绅士化

You don't hear a lot of hot, danceable tracks about gentrification.

But Detroit emcee/slam poet/teacher Mic Write writes ear worms about the city's evolution, his pride in its unsung neighborhoods, and how good it feels to disprove anyone who didn't expect much of a kid from the D.

Here's a few you'll put on repeat.

H.O.M.E.S: The track that put him on the map

If you know Mic Write already (real name Chace Morris), it's probably because of this song, featuring Doss the Artist. 

The video's a love letter to what growing up in Detroit felt like for Morris, recalling all those years as a kid walking around rapping while wearing headphones.

Sure, there's rage and abandonment and a lot of burned-out houses, but it's also a son's love for the tree-lined, brick home neighborhoods of familiar people going about familiar lives.

"Ain't no big bad wolf, no hungry breath gonna 

Blow my heart down, give me home or give me death, uh.

Thinking we built this thing from straw and sticks?

Nah. Third-pig law: only build your love with bricks."

H.O.M.E.S wasn't a massive hit. It didn't make Morris famous.

But it got him noticed, nationally, as one to watch.

"Wait/Weight" gets even more personal 

Morris used the platform from H.O.M.E.S to keep developing his own voice: a brilliant, politicized, self-assured artist who's also willing to wade¹ into his own weariness and vulnerability.

"And I never lack for imperfections, serial² procrastinator³,

Battle with depression. Slight insomniac⁴, hypochondriac,

Anxiety attacks are taxing, asking if I'm dying, trying to relax.

Just from living, steady testing the sobriety of blacks." 

Morris says his newer sound is a little more polished, a little more experienced.

"Yeah, and just tapping into what I really want to say, instead of what I think people want to hear."

He wrote a lot of poetry in high school, but Morris says he was too shy to actually rap anywhere other than his friends' car – until he got to college.

There, he and a bunch of guys in the same hall at Wayne State University put together a massive, "Wu Tang-like clan," Morris says.

For their very first song, they sampled the strings⁵ solo from Hall and Oates' "Sara Smile."

"It's that part at the end, and it's like the strings, they get real high and epic⁶?" Morris laughs. "We looped it, we rapped over it, and we thought it was the coldest song of all time in the history of hip⁷ hop⁸!"

So they did a fraternity show. Whole big group of guys, just one mic between them.

"It was not great," Morris smiles, shaking his head. "No, it was not great."

But it was a start.

Morris says he went into Wayne State studying optometry and planning to take over his godmother's practice someday – a steady, dependable future that made it hard to tell his family about his real hopes of becoming a poet and rapper.

So he didn't.

And it wasn't until they started reading about his shows in the paper that they figured it out. But by then, there were signs he might actually be able to make it.

He started winning regional slam poetry titles. Metro⁹ Times named him one of Detroit's best poets.

In 2013, Kresge named him to one of their prestigious¹⁰, selective Artist Fellowships.

Now he's teaching creative writing in Detroit high schools through the InsideOut Literary Arts Project.

Which is full circle, because in "Wait/Weight," Morris writes about some of the frustrations¹¹ he faced as a kid in those schools.

"High school English teacher labeled me a plagiarist¹²,

Black boy that write too well, look how good his paper is."

Morris says some of the students he has now, they've internalized that perception about themselves, that they're just not great students, not good writers.

"Like, we might have had class maybe two months, and they've maybe written one thing down the entire time, " Morris says. "But then in month four, out of nowhere, they'll just slide something to me and walk out of class. And it'll be something, absolutely amazing. And it'll be like, wait, where did this come from! It's like, what? What is this?"

"Celibate¹³" goes back to gentrification…but somehow in a fun way?

One of his newest tracks, "Celibate" is a throwback to his dancey stuff, the stuff that makes you roll the windows down.

And like H.O.M.E.S, it's about the changes longtime Detroiters are witnessing. 

"Moved the tenants¹⁴ out the door, whitewashed¹⁵ overnight.

Then they built them stores, too expensive to afford.

Then they bought my block, then they changed that name.

New identity apart from the place we come…"

Morris says his fascination¹⁶ started when Cass Corridor was morphing into Midtown.

"When I was first down there, I started seeing these coffee shops popping up, these new boutiques, I was like whooo this is NICE!" Morris says. "It's like, I'm gonna just spend money on this, I love this! This new life coming in, more and more people in that area walking around. It's like yeah, that's good!"

Then, he says, his neighbors couldn't afford their rent.

And he says coffee shops started telling him, "Oh sorry, you can't sit there right now, this area has been reserved…"

"And then I realized, like, you know when I saw Shinola popping up – oh this isn't for us. This is weird¹⁷.

This is like, $1,000 bikes and $500 notebooks. That's a market now," says Morris. 

"So it's that type of erasure¹⁸, where, I don't mind new things coming to the neighborhood or the city, that's great. It's just not having the consideration for what was already there." 

And Morris can write about that, that confusion and complexity¹⁹, and somehow make it funny and angry and memorable²⁰.

But mostly, he just makes you want to hit replay.

1 wade   

v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉

参考例句：

• We had to wade through the river to the opposite bank.我们只好涉水过河到对岸。
• We cannot but wade across the river.我们只好趟水过去。

2 serial   

n.连本影片，连本电视节目；adj.连续的

参考例句：

• A new serial is starting on television tonight.今晚电视开播一部新的电视连续剧。
• Can you account for the serial failures in our experiment?你能解释我们实验屡屡失败的原因吗？

3 procrastinator   

n. 拖延者, 拖拉者, 因循者

参考例句：

• General Peckem's communications about cleanliness and procrastination made Major Major feel like a filthy procrastinator. 佩克姆将军谈到清洁和拖延的那些简报，使梅杰少校感到自己象一个邋遢的、作风拖拉的家伙。
• This is also a great help if you are a procrastinator. 如果你是一个拖拉的人，这样会对你很有帮助。

4 insomniac   

n.失眠症患者

参考例句：

• She's an insomniac ; she only sleeps for two or three hours a night. 她患失眠症，每晚只睡两三个小时。 来自辞典例句
• The insomniac is habitually afflicted with wakefulness at times when he wishes to sleep. 失眠症患者，这种病人在他想睡觉时经常特别清醒。 来自互联网

5 strings   

n.弦

参考例句：

• He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上，随意地拨着吉他的弦。
• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。

6 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

7 hip   

n.臀部，髋；屋脊

参考例句：

• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
• The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。

8 hop   

n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过

参考例句：

• The children had a competition to see who could hop the fastest.孩子们举行比赛，看谁单足跳跃最快。
• How long can you hop on your right foot?你用右脚能跳多远？

9 metro   

n.地铁；adj.大都市的；(METRO)麦德隆(财富500强公司之一总部所在地德国，主要经营零售)

参考例句：

• Can you reach the park by metro?你可以乘地铁到达那个公园吗？
• The metro flood gate system is a disaster prevention equipment.地铁防淹门系统是一种防灾设备。

10 prestigious   

adj.有威望的，有声望的，受尊敬的

参考例句：

• The young man graduated from a prestigious university.这个年轻人毕业于一所名牌大学。
• You may even join a prestigious magazine as a contributing editor.甚至可能会加入一个知名杂志做编辑。

11 frustrations   

挫折( frustration的名词复数 )； 失败； 挫败； 失意

参考例句：

• The temptation would grow to take out our frustrations on Saigon. 由于我们遭到挫折而要同西贡算帐的引诱力会增加。
• Aspirations will be raised, but so will frustrations. 人们会产生种种憧憬，但是种种挫折也会随之而来。

12 plagiarist   

n.剽窃者，文抄公

参考例句：

• Plagiarist is always suspicious of is steal from. 剽窃者老是怀疑自己的东西会被偷走。 来自互联网

13 celibate   

adj.独身的，独身主义的；n.独身者

参考例句：

• He had defended the institution of a celibate priesthood.他捍卫了独身牧师制度。
• The instinct of the celibate warned him to hold back.单身汉的本能告诫他回头是岸。

14 tenants   

n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者

参考例句：

• A number of tenants have been evicted for not paying the rent. 许多房客因不付房租被赶了出来。
• Tenants are jointly and severally liable for payment of the rent. 租金由承租人共同且分别承担。

15 whitewashed   

粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The wall had been whitewashed. 墙已粉过。
• The towers are in the shape of bottle gourds and whitewashed. 塔呈圆形，状近葫芦，外敷白色。 来自汉英文学 - 现代散文

16 fascination   

n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋

参考例句：

• He had a deep fascination with all forms of transport.他对所有的运输工具都很着迷。
• His letters have been a source of fascination to a wide audience.广大观众一直迷恋于他的来信。

17 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

18 erasure   

n.擦掉，删去；删掉的词；消音；抹音

参考例句：

• The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. 过去给人擦拭个干净，擦拭的行为又忘了个干净，于是，谎言就变成了真理。 来自英汉文学
• The inspection, modification, replacement or erasure of part of file's contents. 检查、修改、代替或擦去文档内容一部分的过程。 来自互联网

19 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。

20 memorable   

adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的

参考例句：

• This was indeed the most memorable day of my life.这的确是我一生中最值得怀念的日子。
• The veteran soldier has fought many memorable battles.这个老兵参加过许多难忘的战斗。