by Jasmin Carroll

UKM: Your website says you speak at churches. Can you tell us a little bit about how that came about? What was your motivation to start?

KLX: Well, I grew up in the church and I had a ‘churchy’ foundation, which later became a GODLY foundation [because] for the longest time I had trouble understanding the difference between the two. So I have a heart for the Church and I write from that perspective. I perform at churches and church functions often because my material connects with that audience.

UKM: The original Renaissance was criticized for being just a time period of enlightenment for artists, philosophers, the wealthy and the powerful. How do you think we can have a true rebirth [or New Black Renaissance] that includes the “least of these”, the disadvantaged in our community?

KLX: I don’t think that a true ‘rebirth’ is possible or realistic with the effect of the media being what it is. The media determines what is. And as long as there is TV, music videos, the radio, movies, the Internet, magazines, cell phone ringers, iPods and all those other media outlets bombarding the "least of these" with bull crap all day long, it is an uphill fight to get their attention on some renaissance ideas, much more to keep their attention long enough for the ideas to sink in and take hold. The renaissance must start in the home where parents monitor the kids’ intake and parents need to learn to communicate with their children on ideas of sex, identity, self -worth, religion, faith, integrity, education and hope in the face of adversity, without resorting to selling drugs to your own people and killing each other over material and worthless things. Thus, any artistic format that deals in these ideas can have a better chance to reach the "the least of these."

UKM: When did you write your first poem?

KLX: I was 12 and my English Teacher Mr. Fass was reading a 7th grade class poem Shakespearean stuff that we were not the least bit interested in. We tuned him out and he challenged us to go home and write our own. I wrote a poem called "The woman by the Tree." I read it in class the next day and no one believed I wrote it. I have been writing ever since. Thank GOD for Mr. Fass.

UKM: Is poetry how you survive or do you have a day job like batman?

KLX: Poetry is how I live, not just survive. I do more than survive with this thing. I am blessed enough to make a good living off of poetry. I do not have a day job like Batman (laughing) - I am a full time artist but in that, I am also a Hip-Hop artist, an event promoter and an actor. I also do workshops with kids and I have honed my craft so that I can perform anywhere from prisons to churches. I have opportunities that allow me to take [my] poetry all over the country to many different kinds of people and to be compensated for doing so.

UKM: Is there any chivalry in the black community? [Chivalry, according to the Wikapedia.com Online Encyclopedia, comes from the French word meaning knight. Idealized as brave in battle, loyal to his king and God, and willing to sacrifice himself for the lord or king (considering that Jesus is our King), merciful, humble and courteous toward his peers. Toward the ‘ladies’ he is gracious and gentle.] Also do you believe chivalry can be outward if it is not inward?

KLX: There are two answers to this question [because] there are two black communities. The one the media popularizes and the real one. The depiction in the media, (i.e. movies, music and magazines) is of a black community that does not understand the concept of loving one’s self so their sense of loyalty is twisted and the sense of bravery is based on a less civilized or a-k-a ‘ghetto’ standard. Here folks are loyal to the most negative and destructive entities, like drug dealers and thugs and pimps, and they are brave when they face a judge and flip the bird. And the women are brave when they hide drugs for their man and bail him out of jail, and will profess to shoot and kill for said thug. So in this community there is no real inward chivalry [because] there is no real love and with out love you can't really be chivalrous. You can do as you think you are supposed to, which feels okay but is really destructive.

KLX: Then there is the real black community which is more working class. And the truth be told there are more black folks in the church than there are in the streets. In this community there are people on the come up who are trying to express more of a concern for growth and advancement in spirituality, education and lifestyle choices as well as community and wealth building. In this community you have the college track youth from various backgrounds who will be your future politicians, lawyers, doctors, business men; and chivalry is much more alive and present in this community.

UKM: Would you agree that there is a battle between a [black] woman's outward beauty and her inward beauty? And how do you personally tell the difference in everyday life?

KLX: There is a battle, especially in black women, to understand true beauty comes from within and they don’t have to aspire to more white standards of beauty.

Black women are good for roaming outside their culture to feel beautiful (i.e. the weaves and the make up). To me a lot of that is over done and is depictive of a struggle to find beauty when the sister ought to look inside her first. [Because] outer beauty can often be shadowed over by an overall bad attitude of conceit and rudeness, I can tell the difference when a woman with a humble or more approachable disposition becomes more beautiful as you get to know her. Besides that, understanding who you are, your culture and appreciating the standards of beauty within your ethnicity is not only more beautiful but empowering.

UKM: Finally, the Renaissance reconnected those in the dark ages to new ways of absorbing knowledge, artistic style and experimentalism. What is it you think our community can learn from artistic experimentation that might enlighten us today?

KLX: Well this society is not big on being enlightened and you kind of have to start there. I think looking at more progressive artistic societies like Europe and Japan and looking at the U.S. artistically you can see a grave disparity between enlightenment and U.S. In the States the foot of the media is on the throat of the public, only allowing them to breathe commercial air. If they get out from under that and see that art is humanity [and] not this fantasy that is being hyper-marketed, then enlightenment begins. But this capitalist-infected system will not allow that any time soon, so I think folks will seek to become enlightened when they realize they are being stifled [because] the art is out there, it just [isn’t] at the forefront of the marketing campaigns. And as for what can be learned – life is so undervalued and your everyday should consist of so much more in terms of consideration of others, loving yourself and experiencing the Creator because that is what art (or enlightening art) does. It is creativity that celebrates the Creator [God] and connects all things created.