After seeing Wednesday’s performance of “A Sucker Emcee”, I could write so much about the incredible music by the legendary DJ Rich Medina, the lighting, and simplicity of the performance that captivated me during my time at the Bank Street Theater. But I think that these experiences are moments that should be experienced first hand. All I can really say to anyone thinking of seeing “A Sucker Emcee” is that this performance is definitely worth watching. Listening to the sometimes somber, sometimes joyful tone of muMs’ rhymes made me feel completely enthralled in his performance, and genuinely interested in his story. But now, as I sit here writing this post, what I feel most strongly impacted me was the social messages being told throughout “A Sucker Emcee”.

When I first heard the line that muMs started his performance with, “Fear is a warning and I’m scared” I assumed that the performance would be based on his own struggles in his life and how he sought to overcome them. I was right about muMs sharing his personal experiences in life, but what I did not expect was the social and political messages embedded in muMs’ poems. MuMs highlighted the socioeconomic inequalities present in the Bronx, as well as depicting the destructive nature of drugs, particularly in poor communities. Once I began hearing muMs’ commentary on the poverty and economic inequality he grew up in, I appreciated the performance even more. I believe art is one of the most powerful ways of spreading the message of  socioeconomic equality, something I feel so passionately about. Looking around the audience I noticed people from many walks of life, and I remember feeling so grateful that for 90 minutes, they could experience a small sample of what it was like to be a black man living in a crime ridden, violent atmosphere of a poor neighborhood in the Bronx. For those 90 minutes, they could empathize with muMs, someone whose life was probably invariably different than their own. I honestly felt that for those 90 minutes, the story of a black man growing up in the ghetto appealed to everyone listening, no matter where they came from.

MuMs’ usage of analogies and metaphors in his poetry seemed to work best for the performance. It challenged the audience to read between the lines and really think about what was being said. One example of this was a poem called “Kidnap the President’s Wife”, which you can listen to again on the link below. This particular poem was my favorite because it was so rich in social messages. In this poem, muMs speaks about the broken healthcare system, the struggles of raising a family while battling poverty and unemployment, and the temptation of escaping reality with drugs. Some of my favorite lines are when muMs says that once the president’s wife has finally hit her breaking point, he will “introduce her to the crack pipe”, letting her “feel it’s soothing effects” and then finally bring her to the rooftop to “show her all the shit she don’t have”.  I personally thought that harsh tone and language during the performance of this poem was effective because it expressed the anger and frustration of an oppressed set of people. However, I could see how the usage of foul language in some segments of the performance may have been be off-putting or even offensive to some people.

Overall, I think “A Sucker Emcee” was an incredible performance. The music coincided with the tone of muMs’ rhymes, and the lighting similarly reflected the atmosphere being set. As a performer, muMs provided a captivating performance highlighting not only his life, but the lives of so many others who share his story. For expressing the struggles of a underrepresented class of people through his artwork, Craig “muMs” Grant is the farthest thing from a sucker emcee.

NYC is one of the wealthiest cities in the world. The whole image of being a New York City native implies some sort of lavish lifestyle to outsiders. But perhaps what some don’t realize is that New York City is really a tale of two cities, with the “uptown” New York City being the wealthier, more well known one. Even so, I believe that this “uptown” idea of the city is simply a facade. Both Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage epitomize the superficiality of the “wealthy” New York City.

Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” shows what I believe to be a truthful representation of the “wealthy” New York. Reza showcases two wealthy families, who clearly live the “upper class” lifestyle. But behind the glamour they surround themselves with, they are regular people, whose emotions run as deep and raw as the rest of us “common folk”. This play has meaning to me because it highlights the superficialities of wealthy lifestyles. The “front stage” of the wealthy elite is largely based on what society demands of them. Being a member of the upper class comes with it an expectation to be above everyone else, and be at a higher level of sophistication and intellect. But these expectations are not always achievable, as shown in both “The God of Carnage” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”.

To me, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” represents everything that I loathe about the whole social structure of New York City. Holly Golightly tries to attain the fantasy of wealth and being in the upper class. In her search for it, she is blind to realize that it does not exist. All of the people around her seem to use her, in their own quest to attain a higher level of social standing. Holly’s dear Jose even abandons her when he realizes that her image doesn’t fit his. These idealized notions of class and wealth that she seeks turn out to be a facade, and her quest for them costs her her identity. In the end, Ms.Golightly learns the hard way that grasping for fantasizes and dreams disables the heart from appreciating what is real and good.

I sometimes feel as though we live in a city with people constantly trying to move upwards in a broken game.The eternal quest for wealth and status is for most, an unattainable goal. But still, people try to attain the status of being in the upper class, without realizing that all the game pieces that is the puzzle of New York City have already been divided and dished out. While battling for the way to the top, many lose a part of themselves, as did Holly. But for the lucky few that do get to the top, they attain their goals only to find that it truly is one big game, with each player constructing their own realities, and disguising their true selves. At what point do we ask ourselves, is this endless quest for “something more” really worth it?

-Jalissa Quigley

Fleetwood Mac- Dreams

Art plays a huge role in both reinforcing and breaking down class structures. I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up films and literature dictated my views of reality and social structure.. Living in a world organized by social structures, much of what each social class knows about the other is based on examples portrayed in different works of art. My life may never be understood by the exceptionally wealthy living on Park Avenue, and I will likely never understand their lives either. But perhaps artwork is where these “gaps of understanding” between social classes seek to be filled, however distorted the representations may be.

Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese, is an example of artists reinforcing class structures. The film largely depicts the poor, slum like qualities of New York City. Scorsese highlights the “underworld” of the city, a subculture which many people will never experience firsthand.  While depicting the “underworld” of the city, Scorsese also characterizes its inhabitants as willing to do anything to get by, including ignoring some of their morals. The idea that the working poor are often desperate and willing to do whatever it takes to survive is a common theme in films, reinforcing this exaggerated example of the lower classes. Similar to Taxi Driver, the film Wall Street, directed by Oliver Stone, also reinforces the stereotypes of class structures, specifically regarding the working class and the extremely wealthy. Stone depicts the wealthy as morally corrupt, whose insatiable desire for money allows them to trample everyone in their way. On the opposite end of the spectrum, blue collar workers are depicted as honest and hard working with strong morals.

When comparing these two films, I find it ironic that the working poor and the exorbitantly wealthy are perceived in nearly the same light. At both extreme ends of the social ladder, morals are forgotten in the search for something more. For Travis in Taxi Driver, making money often meant turning a blind eye to moral corruption in the city. In Wall Street, Gordon Gekko similarly abandons his morals in the quest for more money. Comparing these two films shows just how much control artists have over how class structures are reinforced, often exacerbating commonly held stereotypes in popular culture.

After seeing both of these films reinforce rigid stereotypes of class structure, it was refreshing to read Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage”. Reza breaks down typical class structure values by showing two upper class families revert to name calling, screaming matches and an overall chaos after trying to remain diplomatic with each other. Instead of portraying these upper class families in a glorified light, she instead depicts them as they are- human. It may sound cliche, but Reza eloquently proves that money doesn’t buy class, and even when you do have class, you sometimes have to throw it out the window!

Artists either reinforce or break down class structures, and we have to ask ourselves why they do so. Do artists intend to showcase their own ideas of class structures in their artwork, or do they appeal to commonly held stereotypes already present in American culture? Or is it that  we as citizens actually get these stereotypes from what we see in artwork? Just some food for thought.

– Jalissa Quigley