Arms flailing and legs kicking, poet Khari B. can leap from stages and flip from chairs without skipping a beat. “It took a long time for me to realize I did that,” says Khari, who claims he’s often so immersed in his verse that he completely zones out. One night, performing at the now defunct Rituals, he allegedly started spitting, kicked over a table, threw the mike, and kept spitting after the mike went dead. “I hear it was pretty intense,” he says, laughing. “After that people backed off the front row when my name was called.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The oldest child of jazz clarinetist Mwata Bowden and his wife, Judy, a schoolteacher, Khari Bowden says he’s been writing poetry as long as he can remember. “My mom was really creative,” he says. “She wouldn’t let us buy cards for people, so we had to make them and I’d put my poems in there.” As an architectural engineering major at Tennessee State University, he got into spoken-word poetry in a performance class, where–hopping and flipping, much as he does now–he debuted a piece criticizing classism, racism, and complacency. “That’s just how I felt it,” he says. As he got more and more into the Nashville scene, he felt he’d found his niche: “It was a great release and it gave me an opportunity to say things I wanted to say and have people talk about it and respond themselves.” Disenchanted with school, he moved back to Chicago in 1997 and began working for a children’s advocacy group while continuing to appear at poetry sets and hosting shows at the River West Brewery and the Ebony Room.
But while he advocates for freedom and individual expression, he also abides by some strict personal rules. He refuses to participate in poetry slams and contests because, he says, “I’m not trying to outdo anyone else.” He won’t perform over prerecorded music “because it takes away from the spirit of the work.” And he won’t become romantically involved with any of his fans. “The relationship is going to go to hell at some point or another and I don’t want that negative vibe at my sets.” Currently a full-time poet, he teaches poetry at community centers and in schools and refuses to buy, support, or dance to “wack” music, which, according to him, makes up most of the commercial rap and pop pumping on the radio. “I’ll walk straight off the floor.”
