Steel Feather. Lace Elephant.: IMPRINTS

I was blessed to get in contact with one of my childhood friends, Kane Smego, for a truly inspiring interview. For as long as I've known Kane (since middle school), he has been heavily involved in the Arts, particularly Spoken Word. His love and dedication to his craft is admirable and his story deserves to be told. Find out about Kane as he shares his experiences and stardom as a spoken word artist and youth educator, his involvement in an oversea's documentation project, and his struggles and successes as an artist.

Also, be sure to listen to his feature on King Mez's "Highness" track and read the follow up provided by XXL Magazine. Links are below. Enjoy!

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Name, age, and location.
Kane "Novakane" Smego, 26, Chapel Hill/Durham, NC

What do you do for a living?

I'm a spoken word artist which means I'm a writer and a performer. I write my own original work and present it live as well as recorded. I am also a youth educator and a hip hop artist. I make my living performing and teaching programs to high school and middle school youth. I'm the Artistic Director of the youth poetry organization Sacrificial Poets.

You are a jack of all art trades, man. What was your inspiration?
I've been interested in words since I was a kid.

Growing up in Durham I was always into hip hop, I can remember first rapping lines from artists like Outkast, kriss kross, and MC Hammer at the bus stop in elementary school. I started writing poetry and rap lyrics in 4th grade and freestyling in 5th. In middle school I moved to Chapel Hill/Carrboro which was a big cultural change for me, and I stopped being interested in hip hop for a couple years. Then in 8th grade I got back into writing, and composed my first hip hop song that I recorded on a cheap boombox my friend had that had a recording feature. In high school, a friend of mine and I started recording songs with a producer we knew who was from New Orleans, and selling the CDs we burnt at school. When I graduated high school I didn't have enough money to go to college so I ended up living in Minneapolis, MN on the southside for a year, working factory jobs and doing hip hop with an independent label that was starting up.

When I was 19, I moved back to North Carolina. That's when I met up with an old high school teacher of mine, as well as a couple of friends from back in the day that knew about my skill with rhymes. They were doing shows performing spoken word poetry and invited me to join a youth team they were taking to compete in the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam that year in NYC. I went and it changed my life.

When I returned I started going to poetry slams in Durham and made the Durham's adult national slam team, the Bull City Slam Team in 2006. I slammed with them for the next few years, and in 2010 we won the Southern Fried regional poetry slam out of 36 teams from across the south. Later that summer, we made final stage at the National Poetry Slam, and finished 3rd out of 80 teams from around the nation.

The inspiration for my work comes from all different places, but primarily from personal experience. I write a lot about growing up in a single mother household, my mother cleaning houses for a living. My work also draws on political issues that I feel strongly about, often times dealing with issues of race, class, and gender. I am also bilingual, speaking spanish and english fluently, and have a lot of experience working with Latino immigrant communities, so issues of immigration injustice are prevalent in my work. But I like to think that my work covers the spectrum, from serious to light, emotional to funny. I write about anything and everything that affects me on a daily basis.

How long have you been perfecting your craft?
So I started writing in 4th grade, and got serious about hip hop in high school. But I didn't start really developing my craft as a performance poet seriously until I was 19.

Talk to us about your album feature: King Mez - My Everlasting Zeal - Track #7 - Highness. (How did it come about, how did you feel during/after recording?)
Mez and I had crossed paths in 2010 at the Hip Hop Symposium at UNC-Chapel Hill where both of us were guest performers/speakers. We were both very impressed with each other's work, and talked about possibly collaborating in the future. Then we linked up again in 2011 through a mutual friend. He hit me up one day and asked if I would do a track for his album and sent me a beat that Soundtrakk's camp had sent him.

He said he wanted the poem to be about the subject of "the crown." He explained that to him the crown was sort of a metaphor for enlightenment, or attaining one's dreams or potential. So I sat down that next week and wrote to the topic, and then called and spit it to him. He really liked it so I came in and recorded it, but we both felt like the beat didn't really match the vibe of the poem, so he ended up custom-making a beat just for it.

I was really happy with how it turned out, the beat is ridiculously dope. Mez is not only a homie of mine, but someone I really respect for his artistic prowess so it was really an honor getting to work with him and get a spot on the album.

Your poetry is surreal and really speaks to the audience, mainly targeting "real life" issues and taboo topics of discussion. I absolutely love it! What has been your favorite poem to perform?
Hmmm....that one is hard. One of the poems that means the best to me is one I wrote about my mother and which relates to the power of women throughout history. It's called "X Chromosome."

But my favorite one to perform now is probably one I call "Superheroes." It is based on my work tutoring a 3rd grader from Mexico whose father used to be a coworker of mine when I worked in a kitchen. It is really dear to me because of the relationship I had with his family, and because it deals with issues of immigration and xenophobia which are really relevant right now.

You recently took a trip overseas to partake in some activism. Talk to us about where you went and your experience there.
I was one of the creators of a project called Poetic Portraits of a Revolution which sent myself, two other poets, and a photographer/videographer to Egypt and Tunisia to document stories of the popular revolutions that were happening there through our art. We spent a month in each country interviewing people of all ages, occupations, classes about their experiences living before, during and after the large popular uprising that surged through both countries in early 2011.

We partnered with North Carolina Public Radio station WUNC to create an 8 week radio series of segments that included narrative poems which we wrote each week based on the stories we gathered in the interviews, as well as sound clips from the interviews and protests themselves. The goal of the project was to bypass the mainstream model of news that we are used to where we turn on the T.V., and rely on our favorite corporation to tell us what is going on across town or across the ocean.

We often see zoomed out, flashing images of events (often events of violence and conflict) that don't really give us much insight into what the people are experiencing on an emotional, human level. Instead of relying on these images of events to understand--or often misunderstand-- entire groups of people, we wanted to go straight to the people and use their stories to understand events, in this case the uprising that were going on. Then we used our art of spoken word, storytelling, audio interviews, and film to convey these stories back to a US audience.

It was an amazing experience, I learned a lot and was challenged a lot. It made me be very self-reflexive and examine my own stereotypes, as well as the way in which my own culture and country are perceived in North Africa and the Middle East.

Besides the fact that you are doing your thing and making a name for yourself, you always have time to give back to the community. What are some community activities you are involved in or are spear heading?
Well I love to perform, tour, and get on stage, but actually most of my time is spent working with youth. As the Artistic Director of Sacrificial Poets I am in charge of developing, organizing and running programs in high schools, community centers, group homes, etc. The curriculum that I helped develop uses writing and performance workshops to teach youth how to tell their own stories, explore their identities, and engage with issues that affect them and their communities.

Everyday is an opportunity to teach, but also to learn from the youth. We are always inspired by their bravery and resilience, and it really special to watch folks grow over the course of a program, from sitting silent in the back of the class to speaking out with their own words, feelings, and fire.

In addition to the workshops we run, we also run our own events, including a large monthly open mic which is free and open to the community, and a youth poetry slam each month. Each year, we have a Grand Slam Finals event in which the top 12 youth poets from the year compete for 6 spots on a team that we take to the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam every summer. This gives them a chance to share their work with 50 teams of youth poets and MCs from all over the nation and abroad.

Discuss some of your struggles and successes as an artist/poet.
Writing is always a struggle, a beautiful struggle. Creating a new poem is a process, and one that takes time and patience. I love the challenge, but it can be taxing at times when you really want to have some new work to share and have to sit for hours to complete it. But overall I love the artistic side of my job.

My biggest struggles have come in trying to be financially successful as a full-time artist. It took a lot of patience, building, sacrifices, and risks. But I have been fortunate enough to find my way, build some great relationships and networks, and find new ways to further my career as a professional artist/educator. People always love to support art, but don't always realize that that means supporting artists, and that artwork is work! But I'm blessed to live in a community that has given us a lot of support and continues to help me grow and thrive.

There may be some up and coming artists/poets who are reading this right now. Any words of wisdom or advice?
Grind... and grind some more. If you want to make it, you have to put everything you have not only into your craft itself, but also into the business side of things. Create strong work and share it every time you get the chance. I have performed in front of 2,000 people, and in front of 2 people. But you never know who is going to be in that room that can offer you an opportunity.

And don't be afraid to take risks. People say there is no money in art and that you can't make it just doing art. This is not true, but it is true that it can be hard starting out. Have a plan, and build relationships with people that believe in you, and are willing to help you achieve your goals.

Last, find your niche. Don't try to be like everyone else, or produce the same type of art, or touch on the same exact subject matter. Tell your story or your perspective through your art, be original and stay true to who you are.

I would love to have some of the readers check you out live. Can you let us know about some upcoming shows and events?

So our open mic, which usually brings in between 100 and 200 people, is the first Wednesday of every month from 6:30 - 8:30 pm at FlyLeaf Books on MLK BLVD in Chapel Hill. It is absolutely free. We also have our monthly youth poetry slams which will start up again in August.

Folks can join the group Sacrificial Poets on Facebook to get reminders of our upcoming events, or check out our website at sacrificialpoets.com

What are your ultimate goals in life?
I want to be happy and at peace, and help others achieve the same. I think the key to this is continuing to do the things that give me life, and bring life and joy to the communities I am a part of. I want to travel a lot, see the world, and learn about the different ways that people from all walks of life are building communities based on love an respect. I also want to make my mother proud, and be there for her in any way I can be.