Too much chatter: Doesn't somebody have anything important to say


BY MIKE DANAHEY - RED STREAK

Where is the Martin Luther King, Jr. of today? Does he have a blog on the Internet waiting to be read? Is he crying out from the pulpit of a church only old people go to anymore? Is he rapping on an MP3 file, downloaded by a handful, and underground because despite his flow, he ain't hard enuff?

Has he given up before he started because he knows his personal life, his friends and families will be scrutinized more than what he has to say?

The world could use a new King right now, someone with a message of love and nonviolence. Someone who uses language and makes it sing, not shout, rant or rave. King knew, lived and breathed that "In the beginning was the word."

The Department of Homeland Security is right. Though we can point and click our way to more information, more words than ever, what we have right now is chatter.

Chatter. It's the sound of cartoon squirrels; the ominous coded messages intercepted from who knows where (because we can't be told) from those out to get us; the meandering videotaped threats from a cave; the boom of buses bombed in Israel.

Chatter. It's the babble of talk shows where nothing is said; the committee written, focus group driven speeches of politicians; the nattering of nefarious nation builders.

Chatter. It's all about Britney getting married, the basketball player and the suburban husband heading to court on cable TV; the rap group living large atop the charts, clinking jewelry and champagne glasses. It's the rattle of gunfire in the tougher neighborhoods of Chicago.

Where is the love? Where is a King with his gift of eloquence?

"I can't think of anyone. And if you have to stop and think about it, if it doesn't come right to you, I guess there isn't anybody," says Mayda Del Valle, 25.

Inspiring through oration is "a lost art. We're the sound bite, video generation [too many are] caught up in the things that don't matter, and it's all about spending money," she adds.

Rap, too, was supposed to inspire through its words, and at one time was being called the CNN for black people. When Del Valle first discovered rap she listened to KRS-One, Biggie Smalls, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest.

Now she finds the music more like "Entertainment Tonight" than CNN. She says too much of hip-hop, of pop music in general is "packaged and sold back. And people are buying into the materialism and commercialism they're selling." (Or as a co-worker of mine puts it, a lot of today's rap is this the same as '80s hair metal.

"This takes focus away from the state of the community.

It's really sad. It can't keep going the way it is. I'm not saying it's not valid, but there's not a balance of those voices with other voices."

Her own voice might be considered one of those "others." The self-described "Chi-town South Side Rican" is one of the spoken-word poets featured in "Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam," which plays Jan. 20-25 at the Shubert Theatre .

Del Valle attended Maria High School, and she credits a teacher, Mrs. Kelly, for channeling her talent into words. She took Puerto Rican folk dance lessons, which taught her of her homeland's ties to Africa.

At Williams College in Massachusetts, senior year she put on a show of her own work. After graduating she moved to New York and started competing and winning poetry slams. Her big break came at a contest in Seattle in 2001, which led to the HBO Def Poetry Jam presentation, then Broadway.

Somewhere along the line she picked up King's lesson of "being unafraid or appearing to be unafraid. Of being able to say 'I am going to speak out and whoever wants to join me, come on over.' "

"For the day the American dream includes me / I write America," is one of her lines s.

And in times like these, as her own experience shows, maybe the questions should be, "Why can't you lead yourself?" she says.

In other words, every person a King. It's necessary.