Sarah Jones Performs
Your Revolution!
Sarah Jones is a published poet, spoken word performer, actor and playwright. She attended Bryn Mawr College where she was the recipient of the Mellon Minority Fellowship, then returned to New York and began performing, eventually winning the Nuyorican Poets Café's 1997 Grand Slam Championship, being selected for the 1997 National semi-finalist Nuyorican Slam Team, and working with such artists as Paul Simon, Derek Walcott and Gil Scott-Heron.
Rating: Statement Here! [plenty of attitude as well!]
Your Revolution
[From The Incredible World of Gilles Peterson]
Sarah Jones speaks out on FEMININE INDEPENDENCE and LIBERATION. Sarah Jones
- Your Revolution an answer to Gil Scott-Heron's classic rap The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
Jones' solo show, Surface Transit, has been presented at the HBO Workspace, the American Place Theatre, and at HBO's Aspen Comedy Arts Festival where it won the Best One Person Show award. Jones' work has also been featured on albums including the Lyricist Lounge, Vol. 1, USSR:Life From the Other Side, and The Rose That Grew From Concrete, the poems of Tupac Shakur. She has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, and has performed in such diverse settings as Lincoln Center, The Apollo Theater, Aaron Davis Hall, The Panasonic Jazz Festival, Caroline's, The Public Theater and the 92nd Street Y. She has also given workshops, taught poetry, and lectured for countless classes and audiences ranging in age from six to sixty at institutions including Riker's Island's Rosewood School, various New York City public schools, and universities in the US and Europe.
She is the recipient of the 1998 Van Lier Literary Fellowship from the Bronx Council on the Arts and has also received grants from Poets and Writers/NYFA. She recently wrote and performed her critically acclaimed second solo show, Women Can't Wait, commissioned by international women's rights organization Equality Now, at the United Nations where it was introduced by Gwyneth Paltrow for the International Conference on Women's Rights, June 2000. Jones was chosen by Time Out New York as one of the 99 people to watch in 1999, featured as the 2000 "It" performer on Entertainment Weekly's "It List", and counted among Variety's top ten comedic talents of 2000. She worked recently on an MTV sitcom pilot; appears in PBS' award-winning City Life series; is featured in the upcoming Spike Lee film Bamboozled; and will appear in the celebrated Vagina Monologues off-Broadway this fall.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Gil Scott-Heron started what would become known as rap music back in 1975 with his poetry backed by music piece The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Here is the text of his genre creating poem:
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
You will not be able to stay home, brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on and drop out. You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip, Skip out for beer during commercials, Because the revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox In 4 parts without commercial interruption. The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon Blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat Hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia. The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal. The revolution will not get rid of the nubs. The revolution will not make you look five pounds Thinner, because
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no pictures of you and Willie Mays Pushing that cart down the block on the dead run, Or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance. NBC will not predict the winner at 8:32 or the count from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down Brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of young being Run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process. There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a red, black and Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving For just the right occasion.
Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and Women will not care if Dick finally gets down with Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock News and no pictures of hairy armed women Liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose. The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be right back after a message About a white tornado, white lightning, or white people. You will not have to worry about a germ on your Bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that cause bad breath.
The revolution WILL put you in the driver's seat.
The revolution will not be televised, WILL not be televised,
WILL NOT BE TELEVISED.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be LIVE.
Gill Scott-Heron 1975
Sex in Music Survey Past and Present
©2001
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