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Shuffled! is a weekly column appearing every Thursday here on BPRLive. Each week, we welcome someone from the APA community to share some thoughts about the music they listen to. Check out the Shuffled! archive for past articles.

Today’s Shuffler: Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai

“Raw, evocative, insightful…Kelly is a contemporary visionary who is helping to change the world, one poem at a time.” — Celeste Hamilton, Action Without Borders/Idealist.org

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai is a Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based Chinese Taiwanese American spoken word artist who fights for cultural pride and survival through how she spits and how she lives. Touring extensively worldwide, she has featured at over 300 shows across the continental United States, Hawai’i, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Kenya, and the Netherlands.

Kelly has rocked stages at venues like the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the House of Blues, the Apollo Theater in Harlem, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and three seasons of “Russell Simmons Presents HBO Def Poetry.” She has shared stages with Mos Def, KRS-One, Sonia Sanchez, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Talib Kweli, DMX, Michael Eric Dyson, Wyclef Jean, Tracy Morgan, Amiri Baraka, and many more.

Past projects include her award-winning spoken word video (“By-Standing..” dir. by Karen Lin) and her viral spoken word video (“Black, White, Whatever” dir. by Jazzmen Lee-Johnson), which was featured on Youtube.com the day before Barack Obama’s historic election and quickly garnered over 200,000 hits. Her poems and essays can be found in We Don’t Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists (Seal/Avalon), We Got Issues! A Young Woman’s Guide to a Bold, Empowered and Courageous Life (Inner Ocean) and The Spoken Word Revolution Redux (Sourcebooks).

For poetry, calendar, mailing list, and online store, check out Kelly’s website, Youtube channel, myspace, or Facebook.

Now we shuffle…

“I’ll be there”
Jackson 5
Man! I’ve been feeling mad nostalgic lately. Like on a straight New Edition, Jackson 5, sweet and swooning and syrupy kind of kick. It takes real courage and perserverance to be a romantic in our world today. I’m looking to ‘lil Mikey J for the strength to be that. I love how the purity and authenticity of the emotions in this song are so eternal.

“I used to Love H.E.R.”
Common
Classic Chicago track. Funny, ‘cuz I’ve been thinking about this song all week and about so many songs in hip hop that are devoted to the wayward woman who starts off all innocent and then ends up on drugs/stripping/prostituting/dying of AIDS, etc. But for me, this song is also about whatever we love can be redeemed.

“Have a Good Time”
The Skatalites
This brings me back to high school and my ska/punk rock/raver friends back in the day. I got to see the Skatalites live this summer at an outdoor concert in Brooklyn, which of course was dope to see these living legends at work.

“Lil Tookie”
Taiyo Na
Heeeeeeey! This is the track that Taiyo let us use for the credits for my spoken word video “Black, White, Whatever” that was all over the internet leading up to election. What I love about Taiyo is that I feel like he’s bringing that soulful vibe to APIA hip hop scene. He studies up on all of his roots culturally and musically and pays respects to them.

“Dear Mama”
Tupac Shakur
One of my favorite songs ever. But I do find it weird that Keyshia Cole has a new track with Tupac — it just seems awkward. I don’t know maybe he is alive somewhere in Cuba or something. I guess it’s less depressing to think of that than an incredible artist’s life cut so short.

Last 5 posts by shuffled

• Shuffled! North Star of the BROWNSTAR Revolution - December 10th, 2009
• Shuffled! Pen Khek Chear - November 25th, 2009
• Shuffled! Maanav Thakore - November 19th, 2009
• Shuffled! Jerry Ma - August 13th, 2009
• Shuffled! Tanzila Ahmed - August 6th, 2009

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