Emmerald: How long have you been writing and performing poetry?
Ursula Rucker: Well, writing it for a while since I was pre-adolescent. I didn’t start performing it until I was an adult, like twenty-ish, around twenty-five. And then I recorded it and my first recording was soon after that.
Emm: Do you play any music yourself?
Ursula: No, I don’t play any instruments. No, fortunately.
Emm: When you write your poetry do you think of it with music behind it or do you write the words first, and then the music comes later?
Ursula: It depends, I mean some poems have been written expressly for a certain track, for a certain project. Or sometimes I’ll have an existing poem and then when I have an opportunity to do my own project, then I’ll, say you know, maybe I could put this poem to music and see how it sounds. You know, it’s always different. The poetry is what comes first though, you know, like the chicken and the egg. For me it’s always the poetry and long after I stop doing poetry with music, recording it and performing it, the poetry will still be there.
Emm: Do you choose the producers and musicians that write music for your poetry, or do people usually present an idea for music to you?
Ursula: I choose it, and very rarely has there been an instance when someone will send me some music and then I end up working with them that way. It’s usually someone that I know already or that someone else introduces me to. I love the people I work with, but I think for my next project, I would like to venture out and work with different people. I kind of want to stretch myself to work with people. That is always difficult because I think a lot of times people tend to stay where they think it’s safe, with people that they know, people that they’re comfortable with, where there’s a mutual respect. When you’re recording poetry with music, it is so vital that there is an understanding. I’m not a typical vocalist. I don’t sing; I’m not loud; and really, the words and understanding of the words are crucial. So someone has to understand that there has to be that balance with the music and the words. So I think it takes a really special type of person to do that and I think, and I have been blessed to work with people who understand that.
Emm: I listen to your work, and you talk about things that I think about and that my friends think about, things like womanhood, black womanhood, politics and music, you know, where rap music is going, things like that. But I don’t think about it the way you seem to. I wonder, do you feel burdened at all by what’s going on out there? Or when you’re processing things, does it just kind of come out in just a really poignant way?
Ursula: You know, this thing for me is definitely part burden – part gift. Things go on in my life, things go on around me in the community that I live in, directly in the community at large, and in the world community, yes all that stuff. It’s so easy for me to internalize things. Stuff kind of blindsides me. You know I’ll just be sitting there and somebody will say something, or something will come across on the TV, or I’ll see a headline, and it’s just like a punch in the face, and I then I can’t let it go. And so when I write a poem that deals with whatever I saw or heard or experienced, it’s not necessarily that I let it go but I deal with it in a certain way where it's not just sitting there anymore. I put it some place and get it out in a way, I mean it’s still in there but it’s not so much in there.
