“Everything That I Do Is Poetry” - Lukasz Polowczyk
photo by Gene Glover.
“I want to get into spoken word.” This is what I told my friend Lee on our podcast Connecting the Classics (link to podcast newsletter there) back in April. Sure enough, a few days later, I got an email in my inbox from a spoken word artist called aint about me telling me to check out their newest album indigo sine wave.
I have always liked lyrics more than music. I focus on words more than sounds. This has changed as I’ve gotten older, but my time as a music fan and person-who-thinks-too-much-about-music has led me to this fundamental truth about my brain’s inherent preferences. I’ve also realized a lot of genres could be characterized as spoken word. Hip-hop, in a sense. Some punk and noise music I listen to where people just scream or talk. The Hold Steady? So I don’t know what spoken word really is but I know I wanna get more into it.
“REAL POETRY” often makes me feel illiterate. But indigo sine wave hit me on a visceral level. aint about me is a collaborative project between musician Jan Wagner and lyricist Lukasz Polowczyk, a modern-day duo capable of conjuring what Lou Reed and John Cale did so many decades ago. indigo sine wave, like their other releases, like the Velvet Underground, has the potential to echo on for eternity. I embedded it right here:
In the first of a series of interviews I have planned for this newsletter, I sent Lukasz some questions about himself and the project. I hope it encourages you to think about music, life, spoken word, colors, poetry, moving from Poland to NYC as hip-hop was bursting into life, or whatever. It starts with a basic ass question about spoken word music because I still am trying to get to the bottom of what that even means. But enough about ME…
When it comes to poetry and spoken word music, I sometimes struggle with fully understanding what a poet means in their work. Listening to indigo sine wave I had a similar experience as when I listen to an artist like Earl Sweatshirt. I hear flashes of lines or imagery that connect to me on a visceral level, but I also have to think hard and am unsure when I question the larger meaning.
First of all, do you have any advice for someone who wants to increase their poetry comprehension or start getting more out of spoken word?
I find it hard to answer this question because no two poems are alike. Some might dress up the mundane, you know, sprinkle a little bit of magic dust all over it, and make you see things in a new light. Others will amplify a very specific feeling, and they can be as manipulative in doing so as any one of those epic Hollywood films with the big string-driven scores. Then there's the type that turns language on itself, breaks it, if you may, in order to force the reader to capitulate their insistence on creating meaning, and with that, hopefully, free them from that oppressive, incessant voice inside their heads – bring them closer to an experience of raw reality. Buddhist Koans are designed to do that because you can't make sense of them with your rational mind.
I personally love open-ended forms, and this goes for everything – film, painting, literature, music – because this type of art forces you to actively fill in the gaps. And while you're at it, you're pouring yourself and your experiences and emotions into the piece. So, you are, in a sense, co-authoring it.
Back to your question, the best way to improve your comprehension is to find the good stuff and spend some time with it. Allow it to do what it's designed to do. Be patient, because you're not only learning a new language but also learning about cultural contexts that might be completely new to you.
One of the lines that stuck out to me on a visceral level is:
"I am grateful that I have failed in every way this world wanted me to succeed, because I am not of this world."
As much as you are willing to share, I would like to hear about your experience with what you refer to as "the medicine." (ayahuasca). I haven't taken it myself, but know several people who have and each of them has unique deep spiritual and emotional takeaways. In the Bandcamp description for indigo sine wave, you mention the wide range of artists who channel what seems to be some universal consciousness or something from another realm. Do you think music comes from somewhere else?
I love this line as well! It's the closest that I've gotten to describing how I move through the world, what I believe in, and the type of metrics that truly matter to me. I don't know if it's a Piscean thing, but I've felt "connected" since as far back as I can remember.
And here's the thing... In 1982, we moved as a family from Warsaw to Gotham City / NYC. This was right when the economy back home had collapsed and martial law was instituted. The store shelves were empty, tanks and armored vehicles on the street. I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say that this move felt like I was teleported into the future. Everything literally went from black and white to color. And now I'm living in a city where people walk around with these gigantic portable sound systems blasting electro-funk. Kids on the street are spinning on their heads to this alien soundtrack; the music is rippling through their bodies; they're moving like robots.
What this break in continuity, as far as culture and identity are concerned, did to me, was that it made me realize that what we get sold as reality by our cultures, who we think we are, are just a stories, software. They’re not real in the same way that the laws of nature are real. Hence, all of these ideas that define our world are fully negotiable; they're relative, malleable... Now if you compound this realization, which, by the way, formatted me for life, with that feeling of connection that I mentioned to you earlier, you arrive at something of a Zen Buddhist modality as far as practice is concerned. Now, fast forward to the Ayahuasca session. I felt at home in that space, in that state. It felt familiar, it felt like home. I could control my mind, and through that, what was going on in my body, just by resting on my breath. And then suddenly, I found myself in the presence of the purest being you could possibly imagine. I couldn't see "it," but I felt its presence. I bowed, because it was the only sensible response, out of respect and gratitude. And that's where the vision of musicians, dancers, and other cultural actors started. I could see how they channel this space, this frequency. I mean, I knew this energy from the music that had magnetized me throughout my life, but now I was literally inside this space. My takeaway, my download was that I want to do this for the rest of my life: channel this frequency through my work, and transport others into this space.
What do you think the differences are between speaking lyrics and singing them in relation to that space? Are both different ways of channeling the same thing?
What I look for in any type of art is soul, and that's it. I want to feel somebody's spirit or the spirit of a moment. I want to feel what channel they were on, what frequency they've tapped into. Keith Haring, the painter, once said, and I'm paraphrasing, "If you have something to say, the medium doesn't really matter." I took that idea to heart. And as far as I'm concerned, everything that I do is poetry because it’s framed by a poetic intentionality, but one day it's a poem, another day it's a photo or a video installation. The through line is my experience of the world, how I see things, how I move…my frequency.
What are your memories of hip-hop in NYC throughout the 80s?
Hip hop was omnipresent. The trains were bombed. We lived on the 7 line, and it was destroyed, mainly just tagged up. My parents used to take me to Jamaica, Queens, on the weekends because they would go shopping there. Jamaica Ave. was where all the fly stores were at, with the Cazal glasses, gold chains, kicks (Pumas, Adidas), the colorful Lees, and windbreakers. And that's what people on the street dressed like.
On my first day at school, mind you, I didn't speak English yet. This kid leaned over to me and started beatboxing in that Fat Boys style. I was like, "What the heck is that?!" All the kids in my elementary school who had older siblings would pick up breakdancing moves from them and bring them back to school. Kids would get a piece of cardboard, post up in front of a store, and throw down. And boomboxes were really a thing. They looked amazing, futuristic. And you would hear a lot of stripped-down electro-funk, which sort of got lost somewhere along the way as the music evolved, at least in New York. Florida and Detroit sort of continued with that trajectory.
What was the experience like going back to Warsaw and experiencing what you experienced in NYC in reverse?
Well, I moved back twice. The first time was when I turned eleven, and then we went back to NYC when I was like 14, I think. And then I spent a year in Warsaw in '98 because my visa ran out.
The first time wasn't that much of a shock because kids adapt quickly. The projects where we lived at the time were full of kids and had this vibrant street culture. I caught the codes quick. Hip Hop wasn't a thing yet, so I got into metal and punk, which also had an energy and an edge. They were DIY subcultures, also about trading tapes.
So, actually, it was more shocking for me to go back to the States after that because I skipped junior high. Gang culture was a thing, drugs, you know, New York in the late '80s / '90s. That time was my baptism, in that I learned how to move in this particular element, which is a skill that is useful throughout life. How to read energy, how to read people, how to communicate what needs to be communicated to move through whatever situation.
But that year I spent in Warsaw, in '98, felt like being beamed in from the after-future. I was already doing my thing in NYC. I was emceeing at these underground parties at the Green Room with DJs Perry & Smith. All the New York luminaries would come through: Andrew Serrano, the Dub Lab crew, DJ Spooky, the AntiPop consortium cats. I opened up for Gus Gus with a project called Terceira Coalition. Friends of mine were showcasing ESPO and GIANT. I was living the life! And, on top of that, Hip Hop was on some deconstructionist tip. AntiPop Consortium is a case in point, Company Flow, Sir Menelik, what Kool Keith was doing as Dr. Octagon. I was rhyming to abstract Drum & Bass, like Photek, for example. We were listening to Portishead and Tricky, and going to Drum & Bass parties. All of this, at least for me and some of the folks I ran with, was part of the Bass Continuum, iterations of the same culture, if you may.
When I got to Warsaw, Polish Hip Hop was just being born. There were a couple of proto-rap records that dropped before that, but they were riffing on Cypress Hill or House of Pain. This new generation was more on that Boom Bap tip, and they were creating their own sound. It was amazing to see the culture being born because I had missed that back in New York. I arrived at a time when Hip Hop left the Bronx already, went all-city. So yeah, it was great to see the four elements being instituted, graffiti and breakdancing celebrated, etc. But I came from the future. I was interested in the stuff that deconstructed these elements and looked at them – stuff that was more Sci-Fi, more abstract. And I literally felt like an alien because heads didn't get where I was coming from. They couldn't! They were laying down the first bricks on the foundation, whereas I was living in the aftermath. This was a great lesson about context and timing.
Taking hip-hop as a form of culture--which in some ways could be described as "just a story, software" like you mentioned--do you think there is any value to buying into these false "realities" as a human being living in the real world? Or is the goal to get as connected as possible to the more natural place that you describe seeing in your Ayahuasca session?
Of course, it is. Every story is just a script, and if you are aware of that, you get to choose the stories you want to live inside, or better yet, write your own.
The thing about Hip Hop culture, the way I've experienced it in the mid to late '90s, is almost like a spiritual discipline: it's about self-mastery. Even when you go back to the roots, the Zulu Nation, that had a strong spiritual component. I mean, in the beginning, Hip Hop wasn't something you consumed but practiced. You were expected to master your body; I mean, how else could you spin on your head? You were expected not only to learn how to express yourself musically and verbally but to create your own unique template: find your color, find your unique frequency. You were expected to express yourself in the visual arts, whether it was graffiti or fashion. And, again, the emphasis was on finding your unique style, one that expresses who you are. So the culture was constantly evolving, and you could feel the energy!
Much later, you get the infusion from the Nation of Islam and the 5 Percenters, and in a way, these are disciplines and paths that emphasize self-knowledge and self-development, so they are no different in that regard from, say, Zen Buddhism. They are practical, and they are stories that have been designed to help you understand and modify all the scripts that you've been running all your life, consciously and not. So some stories are almost like viruses or vaccines: they put you in the driver's seat and give you the tools to maneuver through life.
What is it about the production of this album that led you to access the ideas and themes you put into words?
I'm an intuitive writer, and Jan Wagner, my partner in crime and the gentleman who produced the record and co-wrote the instrumentals with me, is an intuitive musician and producer. We both vibe on the energy of the moment and turn that into sound and/or words. We didn't have any agenda for this album, but from day one, from the very first instrumental that Jan sent me, I felt the presence of the ocean. I don't even think we talked about this until the record was finished, but clearly we both felt it. I do remember, though, that I made a mental note to myself at the very beginning of the process that I'm in the presence of Yemaya, the Orisha representing the ocean, who also happens to be the mother of all gods. But that's about it. I write in a stream of consciousness, so it just happens – whatever needs to come through, does. The joy in creating something, for me, is the revelation that the work brings. I want to discover something through the work: about myself, about the world, about language...
I stayed in Prague for a bit (just 6 months) and remember learning that a lot of Czech bands in the 60s/70s would recite poetry rather than sing because the language was better suited for that delivery. Would that be true for you as well in Polish? Did that lead you to spoken word?
That's true, but I grew up oscillating between New York and Warsaw. In fact, until I moved to Berlin, New York was the city where I spent the greater part of my life. I started writing back in New York when I was in high school, and I always wrote in English. So it's hard for me to make this comparison. I will say, though, that as a kid who grew up on American rap music, in the beginning, it was hard for me to imagine rap rendered in Polish because of all these soft, sibilant sounds. Ironically, I only learned to appreciate Polish, from a musical standpoint, when I got into Brazilian music, because Portuguese has a similar feel and sound palette. But now we're in the 3rd or 4th wave of Polish rap, and it's amazing what heads are doing with the language – rhythmically, musically, and poetically! Sometimes I dream about writing a record in Polish. I'm curious what colors that would bring out in me. Inshallah.
Do you think you have synesthesia? Can you describe your experience of associating colors with music?
I'm not sure. I definitely experience music as colors and textures, like I know what they are and what they feel like if you were to touch them. But I suspect that this is different from true synesthesia, where you literally see the colors, and it's not a knowing, but an actual visual feed that you are getting because your brain was patched in some wild way.
I met a pianist once who had the real thing, and she told me that it's really hard for her to walk down a busy street because the traffic noise comes through visually, and it's overwhelming. I don't have that. I think that I just have a gift for correlating things, or maybe I've practiced this skill for such a long time that it became innate and something of a superpower. It definitely enhances my work. I love texture, in visuals and in sound, so I'm hypersensitive to that. My work is also very much about translating poetry from one mode of expression or medium into another, so the more sensitive you are to the different layers of a particular thing, the more options you have while transposing it to another form of expression.
As a contrast, your IG is mostly in black and white with a little red. What is your reason behind this approach?
I have a form of color blindness where I only see the dominant color in a mixture. So, for example, an aquamarine will appear as light blue to me, I don’t see the green. When it comes to photography, I feel like I'm limited in working with the nuances and subtleties of colors. If I shoot in color, then I generally work with a very specific, predefined color palette – very controlled. And I just love black and white images because the play of light and shadow is more apparent, and they feel more sculptural. But the main reason is that I feel fluent there.
Is the “my life, my wife” line a Velvet Underground reference? Do you draw any parallels between you and Jan Wagner and John Cale/Lou Reed?
I didn’t even catch that! Wow! I’ll take the Cale/Reed analogy tho. (laughter) That line means what it says: I am grateful for my life, my wife, these kids. I try to remind myself of all the treasures that are right under my nose, because that’s what really matters. Life is a flash, in the great scheme of things, so you gotta enjoy it to the fullest! And remind yourself, like all the time, that every moment is unique, or as the Japanese say: only once, never again!
Back to spoken word in general, what are some good entry points into the genre aside from this album? I’m curious if you have any thoughts on how spoken word crosses over to other media. Compared to other music I listen to, I really feel like indigo sine wave is an emotionally powerful podcast (in a good way).
I love Saul Williams! I come from that lineage, so I would definitely recommend checking his stuff. Either some of his earlier work or his features on other people's records because a lot of his own work is more on a post-punk tip these days; it's not really spoken word. "Coded Language" with DJ Krust would be a good place to start. If you want to go back to the roots of the tree, get yourself some Gil Scott-Heron records. The texture of his voice, the weight of his soul! Matter of fact, I just cut this mixtape for XLR8R, where I do a little survey of the different styles of spoken word. Not to shamelessly plug myself, but I think this would give you a bird's-eye view of what's out there. And if you're into jazz, then the new Aja Monet album, "When the Poems do What They Do," is just gorgeous! It's life-affirming, sensual, and full of color. On a more experimental tip, anything that Moor Mother does is fire. Her vibe is more voodoo, more witchy, and she's on that quantum-afro-futuristic jazz tip. She'll fuck you up, guaranteed. (laughter)
A podcast?! I feel you. I tend to think of it as an audiobook or a movie because it's hella visual and atmospheric, but you gotta let the words explode into pictures inside of you for it to work its magic. You gotta pay attention. But I would love to have a podcast at some point and basically do this, but on the regular: vibe out on conversations about music and spirituality with some likeminded heads. Who knows?