As a kid growing up in Milwaukee, poet and professor of creative writing Derrick Harriell fell in love with words through discussions with his father. βA lot of those conversations were rooted in music,β he said.
His dad played artists like Marvin Gaye, Anita Baker and Stevie Wonder, challenging Harriell to decipher the meanings behind their lyrics. While the songs often dealt with breakups and falling in love, he learned at a young age to appreciate the tales that lyrics could tell.
βThatβs when I got really interested in storytelling,β Harriell said. He began to write poems and secret love letters to girls he was too shy to talk to in middle school. In high school, he took inspiration from rappers like Jay-Z, Foxy Brown, and the Notorious B.I.G., making beats with friends around the lunch table.
Harriell carried that love of words to UW-Milwaukee when he enrolled as an undergraduate in 1999. One night, he popped into an open mic event at 8th Note Coffeehouse in the 51ΑΤΖζ Student Union where performers shared spoken word poetry.
βI had never seen anything like that,β Harriell said. βThat, for me, was a bridge between the quiet poems that I would write to myself and my interest in rapping.β
Decades later, Harriell is an established author, professor, poet and occasional MC. He was a member of the hip-hop trio Black Elephant, which released βEat This Albumβ in 2004. Since that record came out, Harriell has earned a doctorate at UW-Milwaukee, published four books (with a fifth on the way), and spent the past 18 years sharing his love of words with the next generation.
Read the full story on 51ΑΤΖζ Report.
By Jennifer Walter, Marketing & Communications