RezaRitesRi.com

By Reza Corinne Clifton

(this article appeared in the May 11, 2006 edition of The Providence American Newspaper”)

WOONSOCKET, RI - It’s 4:30 in the morning, I have just left my house, and I have a feeling that I’m going to get confused or lost. After a quick stop for a mix of soft, just-baked and jagged, day-old muffins from Dunkin Donuts, I am off again and quickly onto the highway.

By 4:45, I have driven from 95 to 195 to 114 and the sun still has not peaked. I am closer to my destination according to the directions, but at this point I am passing even fewer automobiles than the early morning trucks and early-shift drivers I glimpsed earlier on the main interstates. There are not many trees on the side of the road, and it feels like I am on a winding road that will continue through almost barren landscape for miles and days. Mixed with the unseen yet impending sun, the result is the eeriness of a ghost town.

Convinced that I have been maliciously tricked, I am just about to turn around when a little after 4:50 AM I finally see a sign identifying the close proximity of my destination, and then the building itself: the headquarters of RI’s Citadel Broadcasting Stations. Requiring a U-turn to actually enter the building from my side of the road, I still pass my first turnaround; nevertheless, with a new surge of confidence and energy I make the next turn, call to announce my arrival, and I pull up to the still-empty parking lot.

It is a regular Monday morning for some, for I am scheduled to observe a live broadcasting of a thriving radio show on a popular RI radio station—Da Breakfuss Club Morning Show with Tessa Spencer and Baby J. The program airs Monday through Friday, from 6:00 AM-10:00 AM on WWKX Hot 106.3 FM, and alongside Spencer and J, features producer and URI senior, Nate Lopes.

***

Most RI-ers, as well as many in the surrounding New England states, are familiar with Hot 106 as it is one of the region’s few radio station’s devoted exclusively to Hip Hop and R&B–a Rhythmic Top 40 station according to industry terminology. However, converse with someone returning to the area after an extended period away, and you might hear the station referred to as “Kicks” or “Kix” 106.

The frequency 106.3 in RI seems to have taken on many changes including different music played, different owners, and different adjectives. According to Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, the station, as Kix 106, “had a Dance lean in its first eight years until 1997 when they changed the moniker and its direction towards a R&B/Hip-Hop flavor.”

I can’t say that I remember the exact switch, but in conversation recently, a relative and I reflected back to when the station played songs that, while certainly dance tunes, were not in any way classifiable as hip hop, reggae, or R&B. Similarly, I can’t remember the exact day that “Kix 106” became “Hot 106”, nor when I first started hearing Howard Stern on it, but I do recall at some point realizing the permanence of both. And suddenly, through Stern’s program, Hot 106 had a morning program—even if not a local one.

In 2004, Citadel Broadcasting Corporation—the fifth largest broadcasting company according to the fact sheet located on their website—purchased the station, adding 106.3 to its list of over 150 radio stations and RI to its more than 45 markets. One result was the cancellation locally of Stern’s broadcast, a mainstay for many in RI, with some who only tuned into the station for Stern. Another result? The acquisition of a new, local morning show—Da Breakfuss Club.

***

While RI listeners have only had an opportunity to tune in since March of 2005, Spencer and Jay have been doing Da Breakfuss Club since 1999—from Charleston, South Carolina.

Spencer is a native of Charleston, where she also went to college at Charleston Southern University for a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications. J is from Louisburg, North Carolina, and he also holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications, but from North Carolina’s Winston-Salem State University

The two met, explain Spencer and J, after Spencer’s first Radio Program Director (PD)—from a job she had in 1990—returned to Charleston and began courting her to return to run and host a morning program. Jay, on the other hand, was already at the station having just replaced another dj who had just left.

“They put us together in June 21, 1999 and it was chemistry from day one,” explains J.

Wait. Not even any growing pains?

“Never any growing pains, not one at all,” continues Jay “we both knew we wanted to have fun with people. We had the same vision from the start for a morning show. Something a mom could be in the car listening to with her daughter.”

It seems that their chemistry must be magnetic, for Spencer and J have quite a following. Among recognitions cited in their biography are “Top 10 Morning Shows on the Rise” and a proclamation by Charleston, SC Mayor, Joseph Wiley such that every June 21 is known as “Tessa and Baby J”day.

Despite the obvious accolades and adoration, last year, the hosts of Da Breakfuss Club made what perhaps to the non-industry person, seems like a huge gamble: they began broadcasting in Charleston, and in RI, and they relocated to RI. When asked about the decision, though, Spencer and J respond seemingly un-phased.

“[Why locate to RI?] For the opportunity to do more than one market. The best way to do that was by relocating to Providence. Plus, Providence was really looking for a local, morning show,” explains Spencer.

“When we first came to visit, it was Superbowl weekend of 2005,” chimes in Jay. “We knew before we left that we were going to take the job. Then we liked the vibe when we came and our managers thought we could bring a different vibe to the market.”

Surely, their ratings in Charleston—their home base and original headquarters—would be negatively impacted, I pondered.

“No, it has not been affected. Because it’s where we started, Charleston listeners are behind us. Actually, our ratings went up in Charleston after we left.”

And what about here in RI? This is a question to which I began seeking answers at least three months ago.

Not much for routine, I am just as likely to be listening to National Public Radio, dancehall reggae music or Spanish-language radio as I am to anything else in the mornings, and for a time, that included Howard Stern on Hot 106. When Stern’s show was cancelled, I simply cut out Hot 106 from my morning choices, not wholly aware that there was a new show coming.

But I became more aware of it after noticing that different people were talking about the show. At first I simply tuned in every once in a while, but in January and February, I began asking friends and neighbors, like Corey Hurley or Tanya Lebron of Providence if and why they listened. It was unanimous: yes they listen, and because the show is funny. Others thought it was better than Stern, “because it’s a hip hop morning show on a hip hop station.”

At the time, Hurley did have criticism against the show, though, saying that the hosts were not necessarily focusing on needs in RI’s Black community, like Black-owned businesses and more home ownership.

Unlike in January, though, this feedback can now be shared in person with hosts Spencer and J—and producer and co-host Lopes—who have been hosting a networking event on Fridays since March at the Providence Black Repertory Company. The success of the “After Work Network” has even spurred a partnership between Ray Thimes’ cajun restaurant, Taste of Good Food Café, and the show that resulted in free food every week at the event that began in April.

They have also been honored by the RI Community Planning Group for HIV prevention due to their support in “getting the word out about being tested for HIV,” not to mention the continuous cycles of radio promotions like their peace campaign or their recent, successful prom clothing drive.

For Friday regular and Breakfuss Club listener, Alfred Gaye, there is no doubt that Da Breakfuss Club is representing the community.

“These are some of the most important, most influential people in the Black Community. They talk about the stuff going on in the community and really, Hot 106 is doing more for the community now than it has in the past 15-20 years—with them [Spencer and J].”

***

Back in the Woonsocket station in March, it is almost 6:00 and Spencer, J, and Lopes are all ready. The outlines and schedules have been scripted and distributed, and the producers in Charleston have been called; beginning at 6:00 they will play simultaneously with 106 except during commercials, traffic, and other region-specific elements. And this happens Monday through Friday every week!

A down-south hip hop song comes on with a thunderous bass line and a danceable rhythm, and Jay exclaims, “This is inspiration. Two minutes of crunkfest to get us ready.”

At 5:59, they begin. As listeners have come to expect, the morning will be filled with surprises and routines, with music and with news, and—what I get to find out—with on-air as well as off-air jokes. They will do a survey with the listeners about a policy proposed in South Carolina to feed saltine crackers to students whose parents owed the state money for prior lunch costs. They will chat by phone and by Instant Message, they will converse comfortably with Dave Belanger—the traffic guy, and they will close by congratulating a student for her acceptance into Morgan State University.

Additionally, just as Nate indicated, around 7:00 or so, my whole body will “crash”, but not before I catch a glimpse of the rising sun through the bathroom window and not before I start unconsciously singing along to “it’s the Breakfuss Club, the morning show, with Tessa and Baby J”.

For more information about Tessa Spencer, Baby J, or Da Breakfuss Club Morning Show, or to listen online, go to www.breakfussclub.com.

Reza Corinne Clifton is a community organizer for High School Reform at RI Children’s Crusade and a freelance journalist. Her articles appear frequently in Motif Magazine (www.motifmagazine.net), monthly in The Providence American Newspaper, and on www.RezaRitesRi.com. She can be reached by emailing rezaclif@aol.com.

By Reza Corinne Clifton

(an abbreviated version of this article appeared in the April 19 edition of Motif Magazine or on www.motifmagazine.net)

PAWTUCKET, RI—Imagine your palms accumulating sweat, you are unable to stop fidgeting, your thoughts become disassembled, and any word on a page appears unrelated to the next. This is the unfortunate experience that some encounter when called upon to deliver a speech, or it may be a student with a treatable learning disorder. Well, this is me when called upon in a group setting to openly interpret a poem.

This could be considered odd to some who may know me: I crave creating and reading written expressions, I enjoy attending theatre and spoken word performances, and in what feels like another life, I used to fill volumes of journals with my own version of prose.

My interests notwithstanding, I have never in public comfortably and confidently demonstrated an understanding of someone else’s poem, and this doubt has plagued me for years. In college, I began and abandoned two majors largely due to the prevalence of poetry classes, and even to this day, I still hesitate at the thought of convening to share works by well-known, oft published, master poets

Yet inadvertently, it seems, I have started to confront this mental barrier of mine. My crusade began in February when, despite the flashes of familiar panic and fear of being called to opine, I chose to attend the Langston Hughes reading organized annually by Anne Edmonds Clanton and held at Rhode Island School of Design. To me, just the decision and follow through of attending was a success—in a baby steps type of way.

Dozens of readers simply strode to a front podium one at a time, reading a Hughes poem—long or short, revelatory or cryptic—then sat, making room for the next. There were no real breaks in the stream of readers, and, but for a select few, no one gave—or asked anyone—for an explanation. I could listen to Hughes’ wordplay, and contemplate, reflect and enjoy the piece all in the comfort of my own psyche. It was a relief.

Two months later and driven by a request, I seem to have happened upon another setting where I can comfortably share in the works of master poets—with an added bonus of live music. Poets and Players, headed up by Mixed Magic Artistic Director Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, and community educator and poetry instructor Rick Benjamin, is running every Sunday evening at 7:00 PM at Mixed Magic Theatre in Pawtucket.

As the name partially suggests, Poets and Players features the live reading of works of prolific and well-known poets alongside music played by experienced, local musicians. Pitts-Wiley and Benjamin pre-select and present the poems, while currently, pianist Paul Bisch and bassist Mibbit Threats are charged with providing the instrumentation. What it is not, is a band-accompanied open mic night.

“The basic criteria” for participating as a reader, explains Pitts-Wiley during a post-show conversation, “is that you have to be willing to do other people’s work. We had a concept: exploring other people’s work. It has to be performable poetry, though.

“We have respect for spoken word, slam poetry…but it’s not what we wanted to do.”

Benjamin agrees. They both note a tendency within the style of spoken word of not being able to perform someone else’s work, or of well-received pieces at times being reliant on more than good literature, things like emotion or performance. “All the pieces we chose were good examples of literature,” they assert.

Who did they draw from? Poets like William Stafford, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lucille Clifton; Nikki Giovanni, Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda; William Shakespeare, Tupac and Langston Hughes. And while these names hold an abundance of significance to some of you, merely the inclusion of these poets hardly reveals why many will enjoy the Poets and Players experience.

Forethought or composition is another hallmark of the night that Benjamin and Pitts-Wiley have created, which they demonstrate in a couple ways. On the night I attended, for example, with ingenuous subtlety Benjamin and Pitts-Wiley teamed up during several selections to read what at surface-level appeared to be a dual-character poem, but really were two separate pieces by two different writers. The end result was usually a fantastic literary melody, filled with complimentary word play or subject matter as with Shakespeare and Neruda, or with Giovanni and Frost, who, according to Pitts-Wiley, “kind of elevate each other when done together.”

The positive impact of the organizers’ forethought was also experienced in relation to the music. Bisch on piano plays calmly, professionally, and seemingly nonchalantly, moving his head and neck only occasionally. He appears transfixed and inculcated in the spirit of Pitts-Wiley and Benjamin’s concept, and never seems to fall out of sync.

Threats, on the other hand, is animated, and dominates both in terms of appearance and movement and in terms of the instrumentation. Thin and wiry with glasses, Threats tends to move his body at the same rate as his fingers, which pick, climb, dip and move in all sorts of ways along his electric bass. The effect is deep, soulful, and what often feels to me as almost romantic, moving between the sometimes melancholy and other times spirited. He even throws in fun surprises, like including the melody from Motown/Temptations hit, My Girl, underneath one selection or like the imitation of a heartbeat during a different one.

And it all works. Following the last piece, Pitts-Wiley and the others engage the audience in a conversation about the worth of a series like Poets and Players. Audience members commend Pitts-Wiley and Benjamin for celebrating the works of classic and master poets, and relate their own experiences with reading and re-reading poems. They believe in Benjamin and Pitts-Wiley’s vision, encouraging them to continue cultivating an audience, and suggesting that they “do this live at Waterfire [in Downcity, Providence].”

And who knows, Pitts-Wiley and Benjamin may just try it. For the moment, though, Pitts-Wiley is more interested in inviting audiences to Pawtucket, where he hopes that in conjunction with other downtown businesses and restaurants, the Poets and Players series and other Mixed Magic Productions will affect a gradual exodus to another downtown site in RI.

Mixed Magic Theatre and Cultural Events is located at 171 Main Street in Pawtucket and Poets and Players occurs Sundays at 7:00. For more information, visit www.mixedmagictheatre.org or call 475-6675.

Reza Corinne Clifton is a community organizer for High School Reform at RI Children’s Crusade and a freelance journalist. Her articles appear frequently in Motif Magazine (www.motifmagazine.net), monthly in The Providence American Newspaper, and on www.rezaritesri.com. She can be reached by emailing rezaclif@aol.com.