Philadelphia Frida, Ursula Rucker, spins her poetry on big, fat, dance-floor beats

By Tara Murtha
Published: November 14th, 2008 | 4:30pm

On “Ever Heard of It,” the opening track on Ursula Rucker’s Ruckus Soundsysdom, Rucker’s dark-honey voice drips down slow and thick: “Hurry, come quick. I’m addicted to sugar, oil, the almighty dollar, politics and bullshit,” she sings. Then a nasty, thumping heartbeat bass dives off the soundboard and into the deep end. It’s a wake-up call salvo that paves the way for the rest of the new 16-track album on King Britt’s Five Six Media label from Philly’s unofficial poet laureate.

In Philadelphia — our Illadelph, the two-one-five — Ursula Rucker is legend. Musicians and artists here all know Rucker. They may know her face from Old City’s Painted Bride Arts Center, where she worked for years as the box office manager, before she got up on stage and read her poetry aloud for the first time at a smoky jazz club on Broad Street called Zanzibar Blue. And Philly icons the Roots called on Rucker to drop “The Unlocking” on 1995’s Do You Want More?!!?!!?, a performance that lead to Rucker recording the closing tracks on 1996’s Illadelph Halflife and 1999’s Things Fall Apart.

Even before recording for the Roots and London’s drum-and-bass pioneers 4-Hero and releasing three solo albums, Rucker was a fierce presence on the consciousness front. Beyond an uncanny physical resemblance to Frida Kahlo, Rucker embodies the Mexican painter’s strength and vulnerability. “I found out about Frida when I was 18. There was a Diego Rivera exhibit at the Philly Museum of Art. I fell in love with her that day,” she says. “It was instant, visceral. I have always felt a connection to her suffering, her narcissism, her art, her passion, and her pain — both physical and emotional. She’s an ancestral mentor and spirit guide for me.”

Strength, narcissism and vulnerability pulse through Ruckus Soundsysdom. On “Dirty Chi P.A.,” hands clap time beneath car alarms wailing and cop sirens screaming as Rucker repeats, “This is a takeover. This is a takeover.” You can say that. Ruckus Soundsysdom is Rucker’s most progressive, polished, intelligent album to date. Heavy lines like, “I require your resignation from my life / in writing,” and “You are almost Catholic in the ways that you’ve done and do me / I mean / you’re ritualistic with that shit / how you commit to betraying / mistreating deceiving / altar-ing me,” are old-school, spoken-word Rucker: her fierce, pithy phrases are a crowbar to the heart, denting pain and love into recognizable shapes.

Then “Anduknowwhat?” begins with a thick groove of organ and a quick rattlesnake shake — and suddenly the weight of an unjust world is shaken off your shoulders and the official ass-shaking hour has begun. The track closes with the sounds of a skateboard scraping concrete and 13-year-old Sudan, Rucker’s first son, free-styling her tune. Coming off a song that calls on ancestors, it’s hard not to see the transition as Rucker sliding herself onto the mortal coil.

Since first performing, Rucker’s become the proud mama of four boys: Sudan, Sol, Cypress, and Sage. On the album, Rucker spits, “I am woman. Architect. Freedom fighter. I am mama of four black boys on a planet called America.” She says living in a house with four boys, two cats, and a big dog makes setting aside writing hard. “Most of the pieces on the record were created specifically for the record during recording. Just a few existed pre-album,” she says. “I write much less often now. Four boys. Please.”

“Read Between the Lines” finds Rucker’s vox sugary sweet, riding on rolling hooks and spitting straight Philly grit on the rhymes between: “Call me a spoken-word artist when I’m really a dope poemsayer — on mike and on paper.” Rucker detests the moniker “spoken-word artist.” “I’ve said it many times before,” she says. “It’s just too damn small! That term is just that: A term, a label, a brand. Poet? Now that’s a life, an identity. It’s big, all-encompassing, and timeless.”

“Catholic” is one of the few tracks on Ruckus Soundsysdom that is spoken word in the classic sense, with Rucker breaking a long poem into bite-size pieces while organ, guitar, and harmony provide a haunting chamber atmosphere. Throughout the record, Mother Rucker pinches the listener between the church, the street, and a dance floor, then holds them in place with her flow, tribal beats, analog tape rewinding, record scratching, whispering in the wind, traffic lights clicking, and bells ringing: a zillion sounds stitch through these tracks. And of course, she wheels in the big, bouncy beats, making it the most booty-bouncing album in Rucker’s oeuvre.

“I love to hear my shit in the club! That is such a big thrill, for real. I love to see people get caught up in the beats and sounds, and then start to listen to the words,” she says. “It’s a trip. And to see a crowd get hype off your shit on a dance floor? A gas.”

I saw Rucker perform this last summer at the Philadelphia Folk Fest. A folk fest isn’t exactly where you expect to see an African-American female poet and musician flow rhymes. But Rucker took the unusual invite, showed up, and dropped “The Awakening,” from 4-Hero’s Play with the Changes, on an audience lounging on blankets, a crowd who had just come off listening to kid’s group favorite Trout Fishing in America and their mild, goofy sing-along songs.

Rucker rhymed, “But my tears won’t fill up the riverbed of resistance and change / it’s gone dry / and gone and unknown are the names / which gave that river its tranquility / its beautiful force and Godspeed / rise up out of the complacency-induced sleep / we need / an awakening.”

The sun-drowsy audience sat up and stared, erupting wide, wide awake.
—
Ursula Rucker MySpace

Comments

Please login to be able to comment on this article.

TheThrill (about 1 year)
I like the Illadelph. I like The Roots. I like slammin beats. I should like Ursula Rucker. I'm off to download tunes. Thanks, T-Murth