a history lesson

The spoken word has been treated as magical and powerful since the beginning of civilization. Across cultures, spoken word is the basis of much healing and celebration through poetry.
Storytellers passed lessons and explanations to future generations. The ancient Greeks used spoken word to tell their epics. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, were first spoken in theaters by a Greek choir. Sappho's lyrical poetry is another example of early spoken word. The Anglo-Saxon tradition includes epics like Beowulf. Haiku and more especially Renga in Japanese verse show the importance of spoken word in the East. The ghazal in Arabic poetry. These run concurrently, of course, with an African storytelling tradition, Griot.
These types of poems derive from a mnemonic and rhythmic need that can be traced from the first civilizations around the globe. They come from the speech rather than the written word. Spoken word combines theatrical performance with attention to sound and rhythm.

The most direct antecedents of modern spoken word are the Jazz Poets, the Negritude Movement, the Beat Poets, the Black Arts Movement, and hip-hop music. The Jazz poets created new opportunities for blacks and minorities in the art scene, giving black artists an identity and a place in mainstream American culture. The Negritude movement gave a new political consciousness to the black community. A healthy disregard for authority accompanied the Beat Poets. They removed themselves from the mainstream enough to know they operated from a system of privilege, but took no action to promote change. The Black Arts Movement took antinomianism as its subject position and internalized it. BAM gave black artists a new community space and self-validation. Hip-hop has the characteristics of the previous movements, but failed in its authenticity to reach enough people. Another problem hip-hop has encountered is that of twenty-first century consumer capitalism. This will be discussed more later.

The rise of hip-hop culture can be followed from the 1970’s. In the late sixties, Clyde Campbell (aka DJ Cool Hercules) was a “sound system man” in Jamaica. He moved to the Bronx and in 1972 he DJ-ed a party in his sister’s basement. He broke down the hook in songs and repeated it using multiple turntables. Mixing records became the first aspect of the hip-hop culture. Tagging graffiti art and break dancing accompanied the movement. Last, MCs were added to the mix. The idea was to have mixed beats with free-flowing, improvised rhymes. With an outflow of whites from inner-city areas in the 1970s (due mostly to the automobile, the television, and the birth of suburbia), the black hip-hop community solidified. In 1973 the Nuyorican Poets Café, a non-profit organization providing a forum for underrepresented artists, was operational in Manhattan. The Nuyorcians wanted to create a multi-cultural venue that nurtures artists and exhibits a variety of artistic works to a wide audience. By 1979, MCing took over the other three aspects of hip-hop. Consumer capitalism pushed people to record songs, defeating the immediacy and a lot of creative art of the original movement.
In 1985, Marc Smith, a middle class construction worker and poet had the first poetry slam. By turning spoken word into a contest opportunities were created to reach more people, to push poets artistically, and the revivify the culture. Slam was beginning to take shape across America. For the official rules, please go here. As slam and spoken word poetry gain popularity, the issues they face become apparent.