Rapper Roy Kinsey on the Great Migration
Rapper Roy Kinsey on the Great Migration
Chicago rapper Roy Kinsey works his family history into his art.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Transcript
SPEAKER: So I'm going to start with basic, basic boring questions like-- my first question is, who are you?
ROY KINSEY: My name is Roy Kinsey. I am a rapper, librarian, son, grandson, husband. I wrote an album. It's called Blackie, a Story by Roy Kinsey because it was my offering to myself as a Black person and to Black people.
I work in Chicago Public Libraries. It was where I was raised-- in libraries, around literature, around the written and the spoken word. It was where my parents met.
I'm interested in the word as a power device because I feel as though it's the way that I've had to traditionally get power in the world-- being of marginalized communities, being a Black male, being a queer.
My grandmother's name is Helen Thompson. She was born in Ellisville, Mississippi in 1943. She didn't really talk a lot, but when I was reading the book, The Warmth of Other Suns, I seen our family history in the book. My mother and father's families knew each other before they had made their separate migrations to Chicago. And I was just fascinated by the fact that I didn't know about the Great Migration, which is huge in American history that we just don't talk about. We are here because our ancestors dared to survive.
Just thinking about why so many Black folks left the South and came to populate areas like Harlem, and Oakland, and Chicago, and Detroit-- it's always because of a better life. It's always for reaching for the American dream. It's always for another opportunity-- better jobs, better treatment-- that's why people move, that's why people migrate. I don't imagine that our circumstances, my family circumstances, were any different.
Writing the album, Blackie, allowed me to connect to my grandmother. And it was very important for me to understand my lineage, especially being a person who has a deep need and a deep desire to express themselves.
I wrote Blackie to be-- what I was calling at the time-- audio genealogy, which is understanding our-- and specifically my-- ancestors and music. Black musicians who had contributed to that canon of making soul music that was reverence, that had dignity. Understanding that I am also from that legacy of people who left the South to come to Chicago and there was a sound that kind of accompanied that.
Also, being able to pull from the strength that my grandmother-- being a Black woman who grew up in America-- and feeling as though, if she could do it, and if my mother could do it, that I could as well. These are the ways that I have tried to balance and find myself in a world that seems to make sure that voices from people like me don't exist.
ROY KINSEY: My name is Roy Kinsey. I am a rapper, librarian, son, grandson, husband. I wrote an album. It's called Blackie, a Story by Roy Kinsey because it was my offering to myself as a Black person and to Black people.
I work in Chicago Public Libraries. It was where I was raised-- in libraries, around literature, around the written and the spoken word. It was where my parents met.
I'm interested in the word as a power device because I feel as though it's the way that I've had to traditionally get power in the world-- being of marginalized communities, being a Black male, being a queer.
My grandmother's name is Helen Thompson. She was born in Ellisville, Mississippi in 1943. She didn't really talk a lot, but when I was reading the book, The Warmth of Other Suns, I seen our family history in the book. My mother and father's families knew each other before they had made their separate migrations to Chicago. And I was just fascinated by the fact that I didn't know about the Great Migration, which is huge in American history that we just don't talk about. We are here because our ancestors dared to survive.
Just thinking about why so many Black folks left the South and came to populate areas like Harlem, and Oakland, and Chicago, and Detroit-- it's always because of a better life. It's always for reaching for the American dream. It's always for another opportunity-- better jobs, better treatment-- that's why people move, that's why people migrate. I don't imagine that our circumstances, my family circumstances, were any different.
Writing the album, Blackie, allowed me to connect to my grandmother. And it was very important for me to understand my lineage, especially being a person who has a deep need and a deep desire to express themselves.
I wrote Blackie to be-- what I was calling at the time-- audio genealogy, which is understanding our-- and specifically my-- ancestors and music. Black musicians who had contributed to that canon of making soul music that was reverence, that had dignity. Understanding that I am also from that legacy of people who left the South to come to Chicago and there was a sound that kind of accompanied that.
Also, being able to pull from the strength that my grandmother-- being a Black woman who grew up in America-- and feeling as though, if she could do it, and if my mother could do it, that I could as well. These are the ways that I have tried to balance and find myself in a world that seems to make sure that voices from people like me don't exist.