A Zibby Summer Reads Pick—Loss and Grief: You Too? M. K. Asante, NEPHEW: A Memoir in 4-Part Harmony
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of The Novel, Blake,
[0:14]and created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company,
[0:19]reading retreats, a bookstore, and more. Learn more at ZippyMedia.com or follow me on social at Zippy Owens,
[0:26]or join the community at ZippyReaders.
[0:31]MK Asanti is the author of nephew, a memoir in four-part harmony.
[0:37]He is an award-winning filmmaker, recording artist, distinguished professor, and the best-selling author of Buck, a memoir.
[0:44]He studied the University of London and earned a BA from Lafayette College and an MFA from the UCLA School of Theatre, Film, and Television.
[0:52]He is the host and co-executive producer of While Black, a Snap original docuseries produced by NBC Universal Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts and Main Event Media.
[1:03]Asanti has been featured on CNN, NPR, The Breakfast Club, VH1, and MTV.
[1:10]His essays have been published in The New York Times and USA Today,
[1:14]and his inspirational story, The Blank Page, is featured in the number one New York Times bestseller,
[1:19]Chicken Soup for the sole 20th anniversary edition.
[1:22]Welcome, MK. Thank you so much for coming.
[1:24]On mom's turn, I have time to read books to discuss.
[1:27]nephew, a memoir in four-part harmony, congratulations.
[1:31]Thank you so much. I appreciate that, Zippy. Thanks for having me.
[1:34]I should hold it maybe like this, right? I'm holding it up.
[1:37]Well, you know, that's the question, right?
[1:41]Amazing.
[1:43]I think this grabs your attention more.
[1:46]It does. Listeners who don't understand what we're talking about.
[1:48]So nephew is written in, like, basically white paint on a black surface,
[1:53]but it's written vertically.
[1:55]So you have to, if you want to read it left to right,
[1:58]you have to, you know, tilt the book on its side.
[2:00]So that was a very complicated explanation.
[2:03]Or tilt your head a little bit.
[2:06]Or tilt your head. That's right.
[2:08]There we go. Yeah.
[2:09]But I think the thing about the title, too, and the cover is you,
[2:12]because you're familiar with the letters and the word,
[2:15]you kind of, even without tilting or you identify it.
[2:19]And for a readers who are familiar with my first memoir book,
[2:24]it actually, you know, I use the same designer for both covers.
[2:29]And they have quite, they're quite similar just in terms of like,
[2:33]you know, book is black lettering on white.
[2:36]Both of these are hand painted.
[2:38]You know, these are not fonts.
[2:40]They're hand painted covers.
[2:42]And they kind of are the inverse of each other.
[2:44]And that's obviously for a reason, the reason being that they're related.
[2:49]The stories are related to people are connected and related.
[2:52]And so there's a contrast there, but also a similarity connection.
[2:56]Well, now I feel really terrible because I did not read your other book.
[2:59]And now, can you fill me in on the first book so that we can jump to the second book, which I did read?
[3:05]Yeah, no problem.
[3:06]Well, Buck was a memoir, you know, I always say, you know,
[3:10]young buck, buck, wild buck shots, buck town, slave buck, black buck,
[3:15]make buck buck now.
[3:17]These are all the different meanings of buck, buck was a memoir.
[3:20]My coming of age story about me in Philadelphia growing up in the 90s.
[3:25]My brother was incarcerated.
[3:27]My mom struggled with mental health issues had, you know,
[3:31]a challenging relationship with my father that we eventually really resolved in the book.
[3:37]But, you know, the thing about that book is it's really also documents my love for writing, how I became a writer,
[3:44]how I found writing, how writing saved me, saved my life, how reading also saved my life.
[3:50]So, you know, in the book I talk about, you know, becoming a reader.
[3:54]I mean, I got kicked out of multiple schools.
[3:56]I was having lots of trouble.
[3:58]And, you know, I was finally in this alternative school, you know,
[4:02]and I got a blank page put in front of me and was told that I could write or to write.
[4:08]And I was used to wrote memorization and regurgitation.
[4:11]So, I asked, you know, what do you want me to write?
[4:13]And the teacher said write anything you want.
[4:16]So, can I curse on here?
[4:19]Yeah, go ahead.
[4:20]So, I wrote fuck school on the paper.
[4:24]And she said, good, keep going.
[4:26]And that actually really changed my life in so many ways.
[4:30]Because I was expecting her to throw me out of class.
[4:33]I was used to it.
[4:34]I would leave school and do my thing.
[4:37]But she forced me to, you know, okay, keep going.
[4:41]And I'm like, well, what else do I have?
[4:43]And so, I started thinking.
[4:45]And that was the beginning of, you know, me really tapping into the stories that I had around me,
[4:51]tapping into other stories.
[4:53]Like I said, becoming a voracious reader and a student of the craft.
[4:59]And, you know, that was when I was in high school a long time ago.
[5:03]But why were you kicked out of all the other schools?
[5:06]Oh, I was doing all types of things.
[5:09]You know, everything you don't want your young teenager to do.
[5:13]I was getting involved in, you know, hanging with the wrong crowd.
[5:18]You know, we're talking about Philadelphia.
[5:20]So we're talking about guns, drugs, you know, sex, all types of things that, you know,
[5:25]you don't want a teenager to do a young, you know, especially 13 years old.
[5:30]These are the things that I was, you know, involved in and were normal to me.
[5:34]So, so yeah, so I was getting kicked.
[5:36]I got kicked out of school for, you know, not attending school for graffiti,
[5:42]for different reasons.
[5:44]Ultimately, it landed me in this amazing alternative school that changed my life in a lot of ways.
[5:52]And so that was what Buck was about.
[5:54]You know, it ended when I was kind of in high school, you know, ends at my, in high school.
[5:59]But it's those years, but 13 to 18, basically.
[6:02]And it also, the thing, the devices that I use in my new book left you, they began in, in, in Buck.
[6:09]For example, in my, in Buck, my mom's journal is integrated into the book.
[6:14]I used to secretly read her journal when I was teenager because we were having trouble communicating.
[6:20]And so I would read her journal and try to understand what's going on.
[6:24]And, you know, she would have stories about her past in Brooklyn and her life now with my dad and, you know,
[6:30]they were going through a divorce and about me and my brother and all these observations.
[6:35]As you know, she's a beautiful writer.
[6:37]So that was integrated in lyrics, hip hop lyrics were also integrated into that book as well.
[6:43]But those lyrics were going to be coming from artists that I was listening to at that time in the 90s.
[6:50]So the artists that were influencing me and the lyrics that were influencing me.
[6:54]And my brothers letters from jail are also integrated into, into Buck.
[7:00]And so that kind of quilted layered woven style that you see in nephew is something that is, is also in Buck.
[7:10]Interesting. Oh, so annoyed. I didn't read it. I'm sorry. Okay.
[7:14]So now let's go to your new book.
[7:17]Okay, explain nephew and so I mean, okay, tell listeners what it's about.
[7:24]And when you decided this should be a book and just all of it.
[7:28]Just tell the whole story. Please.
[7:30]Yeah, definitely. You know, nephew is a memoir in four part harmony.
[7:35]It's a memoir dedicated or written to my nephew as a letter to my nephew.
[7:40]I began writing nephew when my nephew was shot nine times and was in the hospital in Philadelphia.
[7:49]He was a teenager at the time.
[7:52]And you know, I began writing this letter to him because there were so many things that I didn't share with him.
[7:58]You know, and I felt that they were starting to, when you don't know something, you can easily repeat it.
[8:05]You know, and so the interesting and tragic thing about this story just in terms of just sitting from the beginning is that my brother who I write about a lot in Buck.
[8:18]My brother, Uzi and my nephew, they don't know each other. They've never met, you know, and, you know, my nephew is now 18 years old and he shot he's in the hospital and he doesn't know his dad at all.
[8:31]And he doesn't really know his dad's story. He doesn't know how this all came to be. So part of it is me explaining to my nephew.
[8:40]You know, what happened and who his dad is and what the story is because his dad is in so many ways that his dad is this brilliant man who's my brother who I always looked up to growing up.
[8:53]And so I have so many things to tell him about that brilliance, but also about that darkness, you know, that also has prevented his dad from being in his life.
[9:04]And so part of it is that.
[9:06]And part of that story is his dad's dad, right? My brother's dad's dad who's not my father, but is a man named Bob who, you know, I knew only as being abusive to my mother.
[9:19]But Bob wrote letters to God starting in 1971, very powerful letters at the height of his heroine addiction.
[9:28]And those letters are interwoven to God interwoven into the fabric of the memoir.
[9:34]And so when I talk to Nasir about my nephew's name is Nasir when I'm telling him about his story, it doesn't start just with his father.
[9:44]You have to go back further right to his grandfather who he also doesn't doesn't know and didn't know who's past now.
[9:51]And so part of it is that story, but then there's the story of who you are as a young black man in America.
[10:00]ancestry, where you come from, you know, both my brother and my nephew are hip-hop artists, you
[10:05]know, and hip-hop music comes from blues, which comes from Negro spirituals, which comes from
[10:12]Africa, which comes from also this idea, this duality of, you know, speaking English in America
[10:20]and having to use English as a common denominator for African people who don't necessarily speak
[10:26]the same language, because just to give you an example, there are 400 languages in Nigeria.
[10:31]So when you think about African people coming to America in the, you know, 6,800, enslaved,
[10:38]they don't speak the same language, you know what I mean? It's not like this because they're
[10:42]black, they speak the same language. Just speaking different languages, but what the common
[10:47]mentality is English, English is being forced upon them, right? But they still have to figure
[10:54]out how to speak English in a way that the enslaver can't understand. And so that's why you get
[11:02]black English or ebonics or hip-hop, it's talking in a way that, you know, bad means good, right?
[11:11]Where things are reversed and flipped and all of that is coded language. And so the music that
[11:18]comes out of that is coded. So when you look at a song like Wade in the Water that Harriet Tubman
[11:24]was famous for singing and composing, you know, you look at Wade in the Water, those are
[11:29]instructions for enslaved Africans to go in the water during their escape so that the blood
[11:37]hounds can't sniff them out. That would, the patty rollers would have blood hounds if you try to escape.
[11:42]So all of this comes, so I'm telling my nephew about our family history, our secrets, the addictions,
[11:48]the, the, the darkness, but also who, who you are in a larger context and what, what you're doing,
[11:55]putting that in the larger context for him to understand because I see so much potential
[12:02]and talent, but also there's a recklessness to not understanding the power of the words and
[12:08]the, where it comes from and, and how it can be used. I use examples like Biggie and Tupac
[12:14]and Nipsey Hustle and Big Al and all of these rappers who I love and who he loves, but who
[12:20]we can see in their lyrics manifest so much death in their lyrics, you know, and ultimately,
[12:28]the way that they describe their death is ultimately how they die and I illustrate that in the book.
[12:34]So just a power of words and meaning. So, so the book is a letter to my nephew and it includes
[12:40]other letters, you know, letters from, you know, like I said, from Bob writing to God, maybe my
[12:46]letters from my brother in incarcerated, it includes letters that even my nephew wrote that he
[12:53]remember when he was a child with his grandmother, his other grandmother, letters from my mother,
[12:59]Ena, who's a very central matriarch in this book. She's the one that actually
[13:04]really brings them together and ultimately, and I don't want to give, give that away,
[13:08]but we can go there if you want, but, but ultimately, she's the one that is able to bring them
[13:13]together. Her and music. So, you know, those are the two things. Oh my gosh. Well, the end result
[13:20]is incredibly powerful to read and unique, original, and it's a multi-sensory experience of pain
[13:30]and history and love. All of it wrapped up together. Really powerful read. I have to say, so
[13:38]congratulations. You're very talented and it's rare to see someone use the form so differently,
[13:47]and yet not lose the reader at all. It's well done. Well executed, and I'm sorry you had to go
[13:55]through all of this. I'm sorry, the waiting and the, you know, the fear and all of it, but you can,
[14:02]you take us through with you. So thank you for that going along. Yeah, cried. Yeah, thank you. I
[14:07]think my background, you know, as a poet, a songwriter, a screenwriter, a performer, a professor,
[14:18]all those things speed into kind of the way that I write a filmmaker, documentary filmmaker,
[14:26]you know, I mean, the studio now that I write about it in the book, Wonderful Sound Studios.
[14:32]And so all of those kind of inform how I think about the memoir. And I'm also, when I said I
[14:39]became a voracious reader, and when I was a teenager, and I, you know, still, I still, you know,
[14:46]as you have what moms would don't have time. I'm a dad. I'm a dad with, you know, limited time.
[14:55]So it's getting harder and harder to be as voracious as I was when I was. I don't think dads
[14:59]this limited time sounds good. I don't think that has quite the same ring to it. It totally
[15:04]doesn't. I got to work on that one. But, you know, it's, but because that love of reading,
[15:11]I've always been really moved by experimental writers and writers who are doing things that,
[15:18]you know, are different, you know, especially at that time. You know, sometimes those things that
[15:23]were different than our kind of standard course now, right? You know, because it comes a part of
[15:30]the mainstream. But when they, they were doing it, it was, it was like, whoa, you know, and I think
[15:37]that those kind of authors and books haven't inspired me.
[15:41]So can you explain a little more about the rest of your life? How are you doing all those
[15:47]different things and a dad and an author for fester? I mean, when are you doing what and
[15:53]tell listeners more about like, let's say, now they're like, ooh, I have to go down this rabbit hole
[15:58]and find everything out about OK? Yeah, definitely. You know, let me, let me just break it down.
[16:05]You know, I'm a professor at Morgan State University. I've been a professor there for 16 years.
[16:10]And, you know, I also am a filmmaker. I said, so, you know, I was lucky to be able to
[16:17]work with Dr. Maya Angelou. She was a mentor of mine. So me and Dr. Maya Angelou made a film
[16:24]together called the Black Candle. This film came out in 2009 and it was a documentary and she
[16:31]narrated it. I directed it and we co-wrote it together. And that was the beginning of a mentorship.
[16:36]You know, she helped me with my book book and she wrote a beautiful letter to me that I actually
[16:42]described and nephew and the part of that letter is is a blur for Buck. That was a really powerful
[16:50]relationship in my life. And, you know, I saw I've made several films right now. I'm working with
[16:56]Idris Elba on a film series. And I also am a songwriter. So if you watch Monday Night Football
[17:04]and you see the song with Snoop Dogg and Chris Stapleton and Julie Santana, I co-wrote that song
[17:11]with Phil Collins in the air tonight remix. So I co-wrote the official Monday Night Anthem last year.
[17:17]And I'm also in this studio was actually just finishing it for this year as well. So I do that.
[17:24]I also co-wrote the NBA Finals with Spike Lee in 2021, the short film series that Spike Lee did.
[17:32]And, you know, I've written Buck and nephew. But before that, I wrote three other books,
[17:38]two books of poetry, like Water running off my back and beautiful and ugly too. And also wrote a
[17:43]book called It's Bigger Than Hip Hop, which is a nonfiction book. And, yeah, you know, I've lectured around
[17:49]the world of capital over 50 countries and, you know, done extensive work teaching in Africa and
[17:56]other parts of the world. You know, I've had different shows on different platforms and, you know,
[18:02]and, and, yeah, my dad, I coached my kids basketball team and soccer team and, you know, I'm on
[18:08]the PCA Garden Committee and all that. I'm totally impressed. I'm totally impressed. Wow.
[18:18]Yeah, it's fun. You know, they, as you know, you know, they inspire you to be your best.
[18:25]So that's true. Wow. Well, I have to say we watched Monday Night Football every week because
[18:31]I have a huge, huge football fan. And in fact, if you were in my apartment, you would see in the
[18:37]next room, we have football helmets from every single team. I have, I have books and he has all the
[18:43]football helmets arranged by division, subdivision, four helmets. I'll have to say you definitely know
[18:51]the song I'm talking about. So I definitely know the song that you're talking about.
[18:55]So, yeah. So I work with Snoop and we're going to be actually recording with Snoop tonight.
[19:00]Oh my gosh. Yeah. So, yeah. But yeah. So, you know, it's multifaceted and I think of all these
[19:06]different, like, mediums that I work in. I think of them as like languages, you know. So if you
[19:12]can speak Spanish or Swahili or French or, you know, whatever language fill in the blank,
[19:17]you can communicate with certain people, you know. And so I look at art in that way that,
[19:23]okay, I have an idea and maybe it's a, it's a memoir, okay. And, and so that is one language to
[19:29]communicate an idea. But with book and now with nephew, in nephew soundtrack comes out October 31st,
[19:38]but book had a soundtrack. There's also a soundtrack that goes with this book, you know,
[19:44]you know, this book project is being developed into a film. So all of these projects usually have
[19:51]several different expressions in terms of the languages that they can be communicated in, you know.
[19:56]And so I think about languages. What is the best way to communicate?
[20:00]Hey, what is the best language to communicate this idea?
[20:02]Is it a song?
[20:03]Is it a poem?
[20:04]Is it a book?
[20:05]Is it a film?
[20:06]Is it a documentary?
[20:08]Is it an article?
[20:09]You know, is it just a Twitter rant?
[20:11]I don't know.
[20:12]I don't rant on Twitter, but I was just saying it.
[20:14]You know, what, how do I express this idea?
[20:17]What's the best way?
[20:18]You know, what's the best language to communicate it?
[20:21]And I think that started, I'll tell you a funny story.
[20:24]When I wrote my first book, like water running off my back,
[20:27]I very thin almost like a pamphlet, but it wasn't a pamphlet,
[20:31]but it was a very, what do they call it, a light tone?
[20:34]But it, the very thin book, but it was a poetry book.
[20:37]My first book, I was 20 years old.
[20:39]And I came out to my cousin's apartment and he lived in the Bronx.
[20:44]So I was out there with them and building called Tracy Towers.
[20:48]And I remember I said, you know, he said,
[20:50]I heard you got a book and I said, yeah, man,
[20:55]I was very proud of myself.
[20:57]And he said, I don't know why the hood don't read.
[21:01]And that broke my heart when he said that he's a hood don't read.
[21:05]And that book came out in 2002.
[21:08]And so in 2005, I came out with my first film in 2008,
[21:13]came out with it.
[21:13]So, you know, that was important to me because a couple things.
[21:18]One, it made me realize that, okay, to some extent,
[21:24]to the only extent he's right is a couple of extents.
[21:28]One is that there's some people can't read, right?
[21:30]There's people who are illiterate.
[21:31]So that's a fact.
[21:32]And, but illiterate people, for example, listen to music, watch films,
[21:36]you know, it doesn't.
[21:37]So, so there was that fact, right?
[21:41]But there was also the fact that sometimes we think,
[21:43]like there's this quote that I love and it's not really a quote.
[21:47]Better than the quote, I met a prison guard in Portland,
[21:51]who said, I give your books, in case I'm saying,
[21:55]to kids who hate reading, because it's not that they hate reading.
[22:00]It's just that they might not like what you're putting in front of them, right?
[22:04]And so, you know, the quote that I was thinking of originally is,
[22:09]kids who hate reading just haven't found the right book or something of that nature.
[22:12]You know, you know, when you find something that you identify with,
[22:17]you excite you that is written for you in some ways, you know, it grabs you in a different way.
[22:23]And it makes you a reader.
[22:25]You know, I've had so many people with my first book book, you know,
[22:28]it's part of the curriculum and Philadelphia and Baltimore and Oakland and all these places.
[22:33]I've had so many students and even teachers tell me that the kids steal the books.
[22:38]They can't get, you know, they're supposed to bring the books back.
[22:40]They never had books and books disappearing and those are good things to hear.
[22:45]You know, not, you don't want people stealing, but you know, if you got to steal a book, you know, it's okay.
[22:50]You know what I mean? It's not a big deal.
[22:52]So, you know, that's kind of, you know, impetus for me.
[22:56]Wow. And I own a book story in Santa Monica, called Civie's Bookshop,
[23:01]and there's been a bunch of crime and break-ins on the block that we were talking about
[23:04]security and all this stuff.
[23:05]And I'm like, what are they going to, they're going to steal our books and sit there and read.
[23:09]Okay. You know, I know that I want to steal books, but you know, what are they going to take?
[23:13]They're going to take another book?
[23:15]Well, Zibi, first of all, I want to say congrats on the bookstore.
[23:19]I've heard about it. In fact, someone sent me a picture the other day.
[23:22]There was a photo of nephew was there and I was like, Oh, that's what's up.
[23:27]So thank you. And when I get out to Santa Monica, I can't wait to stop by.
[23:34]But I tell a story in a film that I did many years ago.
[23:38]I tell a story about my brother's house got broken into a philly.
[23:42]And, you know, I was there when, you know, right after the break-in.
[23:48]So we came back and like everything was just trash, you know what I mean?
[23:52]They took everything. They were taking, they unscrewed the outlet covers and like took those off,
[23:58]right? So they were stripping the place, right? Zibi,
[24:02]get to the bookshelf. Every book, Christine, not even tuck.
[24:09]They didn't even like, they didn't hear it.
[24:12]And it was like the books were made a kryptonite.
[24:14]Like, you just imagine a completely trashed place.
[24:18]Everything that books completely untouched.
[24:22]I mean, it was, it was not a funny moment.
[24:26]But it was hilarious, you know what I mean?
[24:28]In fact, that they didn't want anything to do with books.
[24:32]We can't, we can't give them away.
[24:35]Like, you would think out, like, you would think they would, you know, I'm a writer.
[24:41]So I'm like, okay, what would, you know, what would a thief do?
[24:45]You would at least look behind the bookshelf.
[24:47]Maybe there's something, you know, some money, sad, they didn't even bother.
[24:52]So I thought that was hilarious, but I'm sorry to hear about the break-ins.
[24:56]No, no, it ended up not big yet.
[24:58]But good point now, maybe I'll start hiding things in books.
[25:01]I don't know.
[25:03]Well, if you end up out there, please let us know.
[25:05]So I will, I will be out there and I'll be in the fall in the fall.
[25:09]Okay, perfect.
[25:10]Oh my gosh, MK, I am so impressed with you.
[25:12]I have so much respect.
[25:14]Oh my gosh, you are like, just so impressive.
[25:18]And I am so grateful to that teacher.
[25:22]You know, I found so much in this podcast that it, it always not always.
[25:26]It often comes down to one teacher identifying talent or inspiring in some way to turn someone's
[25:32]life in a totally different direction.
[25:33]So hats off to her.
[25:35]I'm so glad that all of your talent is out there in the world.
[25:38]And thank you for this powerful read for myself and my own experience reading it and hopefully
[25:43]all the other people who will read it.
[25:45]And now I'm going to go back and read Buck.
[25:48]Thank you so much.
[25:49]Thank you, Zibi.
[25:50]It's been a pleasure and an honor.
[25:52]And so much, much respect to you, your bookstore, and shout out to your husband as well.
[25:58]Thank you.
[25:59]Yeah, thanks.
[25:59]Say hi to Snoop for me.
[26:00]Yeah, I will.
[26:02]Okay, all right.
[26:02]Okay, bye bye.
[26:04]All right, peace.
[26:07]Thanks for listening.
[26:08]Two moms don't have time to read books.
[26:10]If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at Zibi Owens and at Zibi Readers.