Ursula's Ultimate: Performing Her Memoir Live On Stage
Ursula's Ultimate: Performing Her Memoir Live On Stage
Written by Sheena Lester for Philadelphia Weekly
February 4, 2015
It’s been 20 years since velvet-voiced Philadelphia poet Ursula Rucker was introduced to the world on The Unlocking, the vividly visceral, sexually super-charged stanzas that closed out Do You Want More ?!!!??!, the sophomore album by The Roots that served as their major-label debut. Six solo albums, 177 guest appearances/mixes and some 270-plus credits later, it’s clear to anyone paying attention that this native sister and mother of four’s been as much an ambassador for her city as her amazing talent’s been a source of pride for it. (How many Philadelphia figures have solo murals in their honor etched onto a building? Exactly.)
A day before heading to Allentown for her teaching gig at Muhlenberg College and ahead of her highly-anticipated performances of the brand-new My Father’s Daughter at the Annenberg Center, the always enthralling Rucker spoke with PW about an array of subjects, including her latest epic work and what audiences can expect to encounter this weekend.
PW: So, how and when did the whole teaching thing start with you? Is that something you’ve been trying to do for a while?
URSULA RUCKER: Well, I think it happened because I had a relationship with Muhlenberg College. I did a full residency [there] in 2009, and then I did a mini-residency back in October. So, I’ve had a little relationship with them, and since my mini residency, I’ve talked to the professor and we’ve became friends. He asked me if I wanted to teach, and I told him that that’s what I really want to do.
That’s great!
He was like, “Hey, let me talk to somebody for you,” and I was like “Really?!” He made it happen very quickly. And you know when something happens very quickly, you’re like “Oh, wait a minute now!” So I thought, I’m gonna be teaching every week for a whole semester. Is this what I wanted? It’s awesome. I’ve taught workshops and things like that, but now I’m hired as a teacher. I’m not a guest artist. I’m on the payroll now. It’s a small class; Muhlenberg is a small school. Maybe around 12 students. It’s nice, though. It’s just enough students. I just have to keep them interested and keep them moving every Saturday. The name of the class is "Page to Stage: Writing and Performing Poetry." I didn’t make up “Page to Stage.” I heard that many times before, and I’m like, “Well, it’s just that, so I’m gonna steal it.”
Do they call you Professor Rucker?
Actually, one of the students sent me an email calling me a professor, and I was like “What?! No, no, I don’t think so! But okay.” (Laughs)
Is there an approach you take to teaching that you may have learned from a specific teacher that taught you? You said its something that you wanted to always do, so is this all you, or do you take elements from different teachers you’ve had?
That’s a great question. I never really thought of that. I believe it’s all me because I’m so not organized, and many of my other teachers were very organized. I teach from a point of going with the flow, so when I had to write the syllabus—which was my first syllabus—it stressed me to no end. I’m sitting there like, “I have to predict what I’m gonna be doing?!” I don’t know what I’m gonna be doing! I had to do it because it is a formality, but really, I just go off of what the response is from the students and what they need—what their strengths and weaknesses are. So, it’s really just going with the flow, but within that flow, of course, having the structure of teaching the writing of poetry, the masking of rhythm with the writing and teaching of speaking the poetry—hearing your own voice, if they weren’t familiar with it, then performing it, then performing it with music. It’s kind of like a step process. I’m just teaching from my experience, and they can take it and see what works for them.
Is your approach to teaching—going with the flow but within a structure—your approach to writing poetry too?
Yes. It’s my process for everything. Sometimes I say it to people, and they look at me sideways and are like,”Well, that’s the opposite,” but that’s how I work. It’s everything. It’s balance. That’s how everything works for me. When I’m working with my guitarist, Tim [Motzer, her longtime collaborator], I’m always using those opposites, but he understands me now. I’ll say, “Let’s do this” and give him two opposites, and he totally gets it. It’s just all about the balance. So, when we do a show, like the [one coming up], there’s a lot of structure there. But still, when we’ve been talking, and I’m like, “Okay, I still need to feel like I can move around so that I’m not stuck or confined. Everything is timed, and I don’t like that.” I can’t work like that. So, there is structure, but there is also room to move around.
Is it just going to be the two of you on stage at the Annenberg?
Yes—and Tim’s girlfriend, Dejha Ti, is doing the visuals, which I’m super excited about because she’s amazing. She’s really spectacular. I can’t wait to see what she’s doing because it’s going to be a surprise. We haven’t really worked out a lot of things. It’s going to be very spontaneous.
Obviously, you have hometown fans on lock excited about this show. Is there something they are going to experience at My Father’s Daughter that they haven’t seen before?
Oh, for sure—a lot. I still have the same heart, and that’s familiar, but this is all new territory to me. This is a live memoir so I’m approaching it differently. I’m reading a lot of it ‘cause it is like I’m reading out of my journal, but there is some performance in it as well. There are a few songs, a couple of poems, but the rest is really journaling; I’m kind of sharing a love journal. It’s a little bit of everything. I don’t really know what is going to happen.
Have you ever performed any of it before?
Oh, no. I have been working my ass off. I wrote this whole piece working with Tim. It’s all new. I’m actually scared to say some of the things that I’m going to be saying. My brother called me and asked what day he should come see the show, and I was like, “Uh, are you sure you want to do that? I’m gonna be putting our shit out on the street.” I had to tell him, like, “Look, I’m goin’ in—all the way in.” It’s definitely been a journey, and I guess the journey is going to continue because I haven’t performed it yet. I would have a handful of tissues at Tim’s house whenever we rehearsed.
Aside from your talent, there’s such bravery in what you reveal. Even on social media. You open yourself up and are so vulnerable. Is that easy for you? Is it natural?
It’s definitely not easy. But I don’t really know if it comes naturally. I feel like its something in the moment that I just have to do. I’m a Virgo, so I think about everything that I do. I would love to say that I’m totally capricious and whimsical, but I’m not. I want to be. When I’m writing, even if it’s just on a social network forum, if its something personal or whatever, I just look at it and think about it, and then I’m like, “Fuck it, go ahead.” So, I guess, yeah, it is part of my nature, but it is something I think about.
Do ideas for poems haunt you until they come out?
Definitely. The piece I’m doing now has haunted me for 20 years, from the moment I thought about it up until I started writing it. I carry little thoughts in my brain or I’ll write it down on paper, then lose it and find it two years later and be like “Yeah, that’s right,” and then I’ll hold onto it until the right time. Sonia Sanchez teaches that if you’re a writer, you should write every day. And even though she’s my mentor, that doesn’t work for me. I’ve tried to do it, but … it’s empty. I’m only able to do it when its time.
With [My Father’s Daughter], I’ve been talking about writing my mother’s memoir for 20 years, so this is, for me, a way of cheating because this is an experiment. I’m not writing a book; this is a live version of it. My mother has been asking me to write it, and I didn’t want to while my father was on this planet because a lot is about him, and I didn’t want to dis him while he was still walking the earth. Since my father died, my mom’s been like, “Come on, come on—you’ve gotta write this,” but I don’t think my mother knew really what that meant. And when I told her this is gonna be raw—you know me—she was just like, “Yeah, you’re gonna tell the truth.” I thought, Yeah, okay, she’s got it, but nah. My mom is really old-school. Eventually, she’s like “Am I going to be embarrassed?” I couldn’t really tell her how she would feel. I was just like, “Mom, that’s on you if you feel embarrassed. I can’t tell you whether or not you will be. But really, it’s about your triumphs. If you could see through everything else that I’m saying, in the end. it’s about your triumphs and celebrating you.” I told her: “If you don’t wanna be there, you don’t have to be there.” I don’t think she’s coming. My mom is a complicated being. And so the story [tells] why that is and how that complicated being affected me—and still affects me.
How long has your dad been gone? When did you lose him?
Three years on January 10. I can’t believe it’s been three years.
How has being a parent changed you? How have you raised your sons, and how have they raised you?
First of all, I was a spoiled brat, so it completely took me out of that. Even though I still feel notions of getting my way, everything that I do is for them. We do everything together, and now that I’m a single mom, we really do. We fight together, we celebrate together, we struggle together. If I’m having financial troubles, like it or not, we’ve gotta work together; we gotta get through this. This is the life of an artist. I have to drill it into them: This is my life, this was my choice, and I hope it inspires them to approach their life knowing that money isn’t the most important thing; you have to do something that is meaningful. I’m on their asses. I’m not like, “Hey, let’s sit down and do your homework together.” That’s not me. But I am that mom that when something happens, I’m giving a speech. I am on the pedestal. I am in your ear. I am on your ass—it’s gonna be like this, you know? My 16-year-old is probably most sick of me ‘cause I’m most sick of him! I just say, “If I survive you, I can survive anything.”
It’s funny—you don’t really realize or understand that your kids are raising you while you’re raising them. Nobody tells you that part of it, and sometimes you don’t really want that in the way they kind of force it on you! Has that been your experience at all with parenthood?
Yes, all the time! I’ve learned so much—and I didn’t know I was going to have four! They’re all different; the dynamic is crazy. You really have to deal and learn their different personalities and adapt. I think that’s the biggest thing: Adapting. That’s something a lot of people don’t learn. We just go along our way, and do it our way. I can do it my way, but I also have to do it their way sometimes. I don’t want to admit it, but its not always my way or the highway, although that is what I tell them. I’m not a super disciplinarian—their dad was. And now that we’re not together, that’s a difficult thing. Even when you’re stagnant, you can always rely on your kids to do something, even if its something like breaking a window. It’s the most challenging job I’ve ever had.
In the midst of last year’s turmoil with the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, what kinds of conversations did you have with your sons, and what were their reactions to it all?
So many conversations. Lots of watching the news together and being disappointed together. It was a moment of sadness as well as pride because I know that their reactions have everything to do with how I raised them and what I teach them, so there was the dual thing—like, “Hey, this is fucked up, but I’m glad that you care.” My 16-year-old walks around so unaffected, but even he is like, “Wow, this is real; you could be doing whatever, and in one second, its over–and it’s in front of the whole world’s eyes, and there is no legal retribution against the murderer.” It just blows your mind, and no one can tell me anything different. I know I’m a conspiracy theorist, but this has nothing to do with that. This is so clear and certain, and our country is the only one who’s nuts. Everyone else is looking in, like What is wrong with you all?
The last meaningful conversation I had was with a friend who is Swiss; me and him were talking, and what he said was like a bomb drop. He was like, “I’m looking at this, and we don’t understand this. We don’t understand why everyone walks around with guns. The only people who have guns here are hunters. We’re looking at that, like, 'What the hell is wrong with America?' And we don’t want to come there. It’s not human.”
I’ve been grappling with the fact that during this time, I had so many things going on in my personal life—my mom’s illness, lots of emergencies—and I couldn’t be on the front line for any of those [protests], and I felt so bad. First of all, I always talk about it and put it out there, and secondly, I’m going to record something relating to it to talk about these things. I make protest art, and I make it to last.
I saw people on Facebook a few weeks ago talking about the fact that Do You Want More ?!!!??! turned 20—so I guess that means The Unlocking turned 20, too.
Yeah. I was pregnant with Sudan.
Do you ever think about your introduction to the public and what it was like before then … and since?
Yes—in moments of intense gratitude for being a poet, which always blows my mind. Not that poets can’t rise to a certain level, but the shit that I do with my poetry? I would have never thunk it. I would have never believed what poetry has allowed me to do—the people, places, experiences, the relationships and the pieces of art that have been created. I was just thinking yesterday in the middle of the night about this time that I was in Amsterdam. I was just starting to record, and I was there to meet the A&R guy from the label I was going to be on, and everything was a blur. It was this whole big show at the Paradiso, which is this huge venue. It was me, Jill Scott–who was just starting, Rich Medina, King was spinning, Common was performing, and we were all on the same bill. Rich was just at the beginning of transitioning from being a poet to being who he is now, producing and all that. It was a magic moment. And I was just thinking about that and how much of a defining moment it was.
I’m looking just at the numbers online that say you’ve made 25 releases, 177 appearances, have 272 credits as a poet …
Girl, I have never seen that in my life! I’m about to fall on the floor! I way low-balled that.
Well, luckily someone else is keeping track for you.
That’s amazing. I’m telling you … this is the bug-out. The thing that I posted last night was one of those things that I thought really hard about posting, and it was a few days ago, but when this person said it to me, I checked them politely because they were older than me, and I had to respect them. They didn’t really mean any harm, but they said, “Ursula doesn’t work nowhere”—basically saying she’s struggling since she’s an artist and doesn’t have a regular paycheck. I knew what she was saying, but as soon as she said it, I was like, “Uh, excuse me—I do work somewhere. A lot of places. A lot. I work hard.” And she was instantly like, “Oh, no, I didn’t mean it!” I just wanted to clarify: When I’m not working, when you think I’m not working, I am working.
