Tag Archives: Donald “C-Note” Hooker

Anthem to Abolish the 13th Amendment (Music Video)

Anthem to Abolish the 13th Amendment (Music Video)
Min King X Pyeface feat. Scarface

After serving 24 years behind bars for Bank robbery, 6 years in the feds, and 18 in California’s maximum security prisons, Min King X AKA Pyeface had hit the ground running, when he was released in July of 2019.

No other rapper in Hip Hop has done more through art-activism (Artivist), in the past three and a half years to highlight the plight of the men and women behind bars than the George Jackson of Rapp. A reference to George Lester Jackson, the 1970s prisoner and activist, whose murder in San Quentin during a prison riot, led to the worst prison riot in US history, at Attica, three weeks later, and a name given to King X by fellow prisoners, when he lived amongst them.

Anthem to Abolish the 13th Amendment features the legendary Godfather of Southern Hip Hop Scarface, whose long-standing political rap flows clearly impacted and influenced the early rap lyrics of both Ice Cube and 2Pac.

Also included amongst the political graphics is the artwork Incarceration Nation. Created in July of 2017, by California prison artist C-Note, as a promotional piece for the August 19th 2017, Millions For Prisoners Human Rights March, held in Washington DC and across the US, including Internationally, Incarceration Nation has become America’s premier artwork on mass incarceration.

Incarceration Nation (2017), Graphite on paper, Donald “C-Note” Hooker

AUDIO: Can’t Black Lives Matter Too???

by Donald “C-Note” Hooker

JOURNEY TO AFROFUTURISM

On a journey
long, long, ago
Afrofuturism was long-sought
The maps of its existence
were misleading
like the maps to Wakanda
but She
a student at an HBC
found the truth
Afrofuturism
would not be found in Africa
but California
Like the Raiders to the Lost Ark
who sought God’s covenant
so too
Spanish Conquistadors
sought the Califia
The Queen
of the land
of Black women
She ruled with a Saber-tooth scepter
adorned gloves
from the Mammoth’s wool
She nursed
the Earth’s oldest and tallest trees
in the forests
of Redwoods
Invited the Blue whale
Earth’s largest mammal
to suckle her young
off Her coastal waters
In ancient times
Her Queendom fed the world
In modern times
It’s called
America’s
richest
farming region
But She
a student
from HBC
just like me
Prayed
to the Queen Mother
at a place
known as
Nob Hill
in San Francesco de Assisi
is enshrined
a mural
in a hotel
for one-percenters
The Califia spake
to our dear sister
in a way
only understood
by feminine energy
and so she wrote
as only a scholar can
the map
to Afrofuturism
It did not lead to Wakanda
in Africa
or the East
Where the Sun rises
but in the West
Where the Sun sets
in America
will Afrofuturism nurse itself
In the Queendom
of the Califia
California


Poet’s Note: For the uninitiated, California’s name derived from a Black woman
Copyright 2020 Donald “C-Note” Hooker

Black Rose

Artwork, “Black Rose,” by Donald “C-Note” Hooker

Unique and unexpected this black rose.
Its Essence is of a rock, the strength is within…
With the stiff fluffy it does not wither.
My black is beautiful, my black is tough.
Imagine it rising from the concrete?
Think of its scent?
Here, take a whiff,
the eloquent fragrance, it’s Heaven Sent!!!!
The possibilities are endless,
just visualize its song?
The month of February Marks Its Beginning.
You see, in the mind’s eye its resilience is encouraged by the spirit of Mother Nature…
Envision this complicated living, Thug the label I was giving but I didn’t want this.
Runaway slave because I refuse to be crammed in on a slave ship.
Abandoned and rejected like Jesus Christ,
not protected as an adolescent,
not loved by Society, but Still the Lord bless me,
because every time folks strut pass me:
they gawk in amazement because I’m #Mixedish…
Hope you realize you blessed?
The trials and tribulations of a ghetto kid.,
who once didn’t love his Black skin.
Still standing strong through many storms, fingerprint of God.
Nurtured by those with loving hands facilitating its growth–
re storing Justice and healing it’s wounded pedals.
Gorgeous black rose with the life blood of a million Souls Rising through its roots straight from the concrete.

By Darryl Burnside

Institutional Diaspora of Black Americans will be Represented at 29th Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry.

On Saturday, February 2nd, 2019, in Oakland, California, at the Oakland Public Library, West Oakland Branch, Multi-Purpose Room, from 1 p.m. through 4 p.m., will be the 29th Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry. This year’s theme is aligned with the 2019 theme of Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s Association for the Study of African American Life and History (EST 1915). ASALH’s 2019 theme of Black Migration emphasizes the movement of people of African descent to new destinations and subsequently to new social realities. While inclusive of earlier centuries. This theme focuses especially on the twentieth century through today. “When speaking of the Black experience, I’ve coined the phrase ‘Institutional Diaspora’ as the mass migration of Blacks from their American homes to America’s prisons,” says Donald “C-Note” Hooker. Inspired by the theme of the event, C-Note created an original work for the event entitled, American Negro: A Migrant’s Story. It poetically chronos the mass migration of American Blacks from their West African homelands to America’s prisons.

Catch the recital of American Negro: A Migrant’s Story at the 29th Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry or read it online at Mprisond Poetz.

Event: 29th Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry
Date: Saturday, February 2, 2019
Time: 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Location: Oakland Public Library, West Oakland Branch, Multi-Purpose Room
1801 Adeline Street, Oakland, CA 94607 (510) 238-7352
Contact: Oakland Public Library, West Oakland Branch, (510) 238-7352 or event organizer, Ms.Wanda Sabir (510) 255-5579 or info@wandaspicks.com

Mprisond Poetz
American Negro: A Migrant’s Story
https://mprisondpoetz.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/american-negro-a-migrants-story/

American Negro: A Migrant’s Story

Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
From my West African Motherland
to an island in the Caribbeanne
Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
Listen to my heart weep
heart weep
To a plantation in a Southern State
to Emancipation from which I could not escape
Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
Listen to my heart weep
heart weep
Back to enslavement
because the 13th Amendment says they can
because of convict leasing
just ask any historianne
Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
Listen to my heart weep
heart weep
Went home to the Maker
from being hung from a tree
cause the Ku Klux Klan
thought that’s how it ought to be
Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
Listen to my heart weep
heart weep
Jim Crow
a great friend of the Klan
so I left the South
to become a Chicagoanne
Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
Listen to my heart weep
heart weep
Congress cut off funding
for Wars in foreign lands
created a drug called Crack
from the Columbian Hinterlands
Started a Drug War
aimed at the Black community
and locked us all up
with impunity
Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
Listen to my heart weep
heart weep
Now I’m a part of this new diaspora
from Miami, L.A., Brooklyn to Peoria
21st Century Jim Crow.
Now a penitentiary cell is my new home
Back to bread and water being a full-course meal
just like an 1841 so what’s the big deal
THIS IS THE AMERICAN NEGROS’ MIGRANT STORY
went from a plantation Hell
to a Warden’s prison cell
Now we’re just lonely and alone
and the songs we once heard
we don’t hear no moe
“Brotha over there
in the next cell,
‘Are you still listening for the drum beat
the drum beat?’
I don’t”
Oh Lord, just put my heart to sleep
heart to sleep
American Negro: A Migrant’s Story

by Donald “C-Note” Hooker

Artwork by C-Note

If

If
yesterday was today
and today, tomorrow
where ever you’d be
I would follow

by C-Note

©2018 Donald C-Note Hooker

Angelic Tempest

Angelic Tempest

I feel from grace
at least from Man’s
Not from His grace
I guess the plan
The prism
from prison

Is birds don’t fly
Not jailbirds
there’s no wind
beneath their wings
But infused with spirit
when someone saw my worth
To be more
than a dirt of Earth

You were the wind
beneath my wings
Now my imagination soars
with greater possibilities
That my life could give meaning
to the world

by C-Note

©2018Donald “C-Note” Hooker

Out of Time and Out of Words

Winter’s cold
or evening night
fireplace warmth
candlelight
Bearskin rug
the meeting place
out of time
and out of words

by C-Note

©2018 Donald “C-Note” Hooker

Tender Caresses

Tender caresses
a cross your face
back handed fingers
travelled with grace
a wisp of your hair
fell out of place
clasp of my fingers
leans to embrace
essence of our eyes
the meeting place
soulful connections
in outter space
motions of kisses
a lipstick trace
from tender caresses
across my face

by C-Note

©2018 Donald “C-Note” Hooker