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What is a poet/ A preacher/ A teacher/ a cloak that/ overshadows the reflections of a moment/ encompassing the resurrection of Armstrong's Trumpet/ thoroughly unnestling Tutenkhamen/ setting Tubman free/ letting nothing be/ unsettling the mettling of troubled teens/ a movie with no one scene/ describing the scribes over the times of just one being/ only one person stands out among these canines/ someone whom through the grapevines/ made sure this would/ lift verbs/ and change minds/ Enter J. I........

illRoots.com: Thank You for the interview. Define J. ivy
J: J.Ivy is a poet from Chicago.
illRoots.com: Okay, straight forward. Greatest Poet of All-Time and why?
J: Hmmm. Greatest Poet of All-Time, man, it would be hard to pinpoint just one because so many have influenced the world with their words. The number one poet would have to be God, I mean that’s where the word comes from. No one bigger than that.
illRoots.com: One Song to sum up your life?
J: Mannn..I don’t know if I could pinpoint it to one song. Common “I Used to Love H.E.R.”, Gangstarr “Step in to the Arena”. I mean its a lot of different joints. Roy Ayers…..Gil Scott Heron…Lost Poets..so many greats.
illRoots.com: Oh yea don’t hear that one…Gil Scott Heron…greatness right there. So growing up in Chicago, what is one hidden gem that nobody knows about ?
J: Well its been spots that have come and gone, but one spot that I really came up in was “Rituals”. That was one of the spots where some of the hottest poets would come through and not just poets, but singers, emcees would come through and do they thing.
illRoots.com: One piece of work that you’ve done that you feel is one of your better pieces of work?
J: My most personal piece would have to be “Dear Father”, a piece I wrote about my pops a few years back. It was one of those pieces where I could just release a lot of baggage like on a lot of emotions that were holding me back. It was healer, it helped heal me.
illRoots.com: A lot of people recognized your name off of the Kanye/ Jay-Z song, do you mind giving a little back story of that piece?



J: Well, I just came out to New York for a few months and I was kicking it with my guy Cooly who later on he directed the “Through the Wire” video. Yet at the time he was doing documentary footage on Kanye, that’s why he had so much footage on Kanye, but me and Cooly were cool from Chicago and he moved out this way maybe a year before I did so when I came out here I called my Chicago peoples. So me and Cooly were kickin’ it and him and Kanye were kickin’ it and this was around the time that Kanye had just got into his accident out in LA. So Cooly flew out to L.A. or better yet Kanye flew Cooly out to document what was going on. So he got out there on a Wednesday and called me that Thursday and was like “Man, we was just at Jamie Foxx crib and him and Kanye did a song called “Slow Jamz” and I got it all on video”. So he would talk about the next day he was somewhere else, so I’m like “ I need to be writing”, so I’m at the crib getting my write on. About 11 o’clock that night Cooly called like “Yo Jay, you need to be in L.A, Kanye got a song with him and Jay-Z on it and he wants to put a poet on it, and I told him you need to put J.Ivy on it”, I’m like “Man you bullshittin’”. He was like “No you need to get a ticket right now, I don’t know how I’m going to pull it but I’m going to do it.” So I hung up the phone and was like “Man I need to make a call and get Mom’s to get me a ticket”, my next thought was “Forget that you need to write right now”. So I got a blank piece of paper and started writing and got stuck on one line, and I’m like “God I need a piece right now”, and my hand just started moving line for line, wrote a full page, turned it over, and wrote a few more lines. I’m re-read the page and I’m like “Man this shit kinda hot”. I called Cooly and spit it for him he was like “ohhh” and put me on speaker phone in the studio. It was loud and a bunch of people talking then it got real quiet and he put me on speaker, then Kanye got on the phone and was like “Spit it Again, Spit it Again”, so I did the joint for like a half hour, and the piece is only a minute long. So Cooly got back on the phone and was like “Yo Jay….Guess what?, Kanye’s flying you out tomorrow”. So I found my way. I’m on the plane out to L.A. and the rest is history.
illRoots.com: So What’s up with you now?
J: Well, right now I’m working on several projects, we are working on “The Trilogy Collection”, which consists of J. Ivy’s solo album which is called “Life after Life”. I’m working on Tarrey Torae’s album which is called “Sweet Note” and she does R&B and Soul. Then we have a group called J Torae which is a combination of singing and the poetry, so those are the three projects that are being worked on right now. The deadline for my album is April 15th and the group we are about 80% into each album so.

illRoots.com: Release Dates
J: We are looking at some spring release not a solid date. We are working with a band and between travel . We are working with a band called “Zzaje” out of Chicago.
illRoots.com: Advice to live by?
J: Never Stop, it may feel like it’s the end, just follow the concept that persistence is everything.
More of J.Ivy, and go out and find your local poetry spots and support them.