Rockeys Dueling Piano Bar hosted “Black Euphoria” on Tuesday night, opening its stage to music and spoken word poetry on the black experience in America.
UF’s Black Student Union and Black Graduate Student Union joined forces with Mellow Soul Tuesdays, an open mic night that currently takes place every other Tuesday at Rockeys.
“The goal of events like these is to bridge the gap between the locals and academia,” said Ashley Wallace, the founder of Mellow Soul Tuesdays.
In the future, Wallace said, the event may be held once a month.
Performers confronted pressing issues, both personal and political, through rap and poetry from about 9 p.m. to midnight.
Subjects included domestic violence, racism in America, self-knowledge, science and consumerism.
Spoken word artist and activist Nino Blacknez, a member of the New Black Panther Party, was scheduled to be the evening’s Spotlight Artist. Blacknez, for an unknown reason, could not make it to the event.
Huggy Bear Da Poet, a spoken word artist, filled the void with a charismatic performance of four poems, each about five minutes long.
Huggy Bear, 44, whose given name is Alex Jerome Lofton, gripped the audience’s attention with his poetry on the state of race relations in America.
Lofton evoked a range of emotions.
Two women in the front row alternated between solemn tears and light-hearted laughter.
Inherently subversive, Lofton denounced the mainstream media for spreading excessive negativity, and rappers for condoning poor morals.
Lofton said he started spoken word poetry 16 years ago.
“I like to keep the rhyme schemes simple, but the concepts deep,” Lofton said.
He said his greatest influence has been the Harlem Renaissance poet Sterling Brown.
“Sterling Brown may have been a Harvard man, but he wrote for the people,” Lofton said.
Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, Lofton became an X-ray technician after serving in the Navy.
He practiced poetry while working his full-time job and eventually realized it was the best way to make an impact on people’s lives.
“I look at this as more of a ministry,” Lofton said. “Spoken word is a way to touch people’s lives in a positive way.”
Huggy Bear Da Poet, a spoken word artist, performs at Rockeys Dueling Piano Bar during the “Black Euphoria” open mic night on Tuesday.
