Blake is a first-generation B-Boy who grew up through the birth of the hip-hop culture, the crack epidemic, and the era of mass incarceration. His love of rap music, and the limitless possibilities of manipulating words, has been a consistent throughout Blake’s tumultuous life. He was raised between Minneapolis, MN and Waterloo, IA. In both places his home life was littered with substance abuse, alcoholism, and violence. At nineteen Blake was sentenced to prison for an armed robbery, and consequently spent almost five years behind bars. Becoming a “modern day slave” is still a deep shame to him, and motivates his writing of spoken word poetry. Blake has become an entrepreneur who has owned several nightclubs, and at the same time completed dozens of collegiate course hours to sharpen his understanding of history, literature, and sociology. Blake and his wife Roberta have eight children, and now live in Lake Havasu City, AZ. He now lives a quiet life, while continuing to assert his talent as a spoken word poet.
Random Bars
Poetry By An Original B-Boy
by Blake Wilder
Random Bars
Poetry By An Original B-Boy
by Blake Wilder
Published Nov 15, 2017
85 Pages
Genre: POETRY / American / African American & Black
Book Details
This eclectic anthology of poems are the brainchild of an authentic B-Boy, inspired by thirty five years of revolutionary’s in spoken words such as The Last Poets, Rakim, KRS-1, Tupac, Nas, and Saul Williams. In Random Bars there is a militancy of Pro-Black thought that still maintains a reflection of inclusion without compromise. The author is a descendant of a German-Irish mother, and an African-American father who was born a sharecropper in Mississippi. Through these lenses the author, Blake Wilder, gives a passionate display of word play narrating an unorthodox perspective of multiculturalism. Random Bars is an amazing mix of poetic verse with the dynamic influence of the generation X hip-hop culture. It is an intelligent collection that discusses many facets of societal causes and effects, while giving its reader a glimpse into the author’s conscientious depths. Throughout Random Bars there are numerous historical references that expose the hypocrisy of the everyday world we exist in, many of which are composed from a first person observation. The impact of each piece is singular, but part of a whole, that shares the experiences of those that have succeeded, but still exist on the margins.