 "Photo: Elizabeth Miller / UCD Advocate")
“Nobody thinks there are any black people in Denver,” said Ashara Ekundayo, founder of Café Nuba. “Nobody thinks there is a black poetry reading in Denver, and then you come here and you get your mind blown.”
Café Nuba started 11 years ago to fill a void Ekundayo said she saw in Denver. It grew from the Pan African Arts Society, and it also birthed Slam Nuba, a competitive team of slam poets she said is reputed to be one of the most political slam poetry teams in the country and a frontrunner for uncensored open microphones.
“I believe that words are magic, and this poem proved it to me,” said slam poet Lucifury as he took the mic during the Feb. 2 Slam Nuba event. His lines set audience members snapping, gasping, and calling, “What?”—not in confusion, but in astonishment.
He spoke as part of the competitive segment of the evening. His poems earned him scores, which keep him a place on the Slam Nuba team. Earlier in the evening, the microphone was open to any willing participant.
The mic at Café Nuba has been open, Ekundayo said, and it stays open and uncensored because it needs to be.
“In the beginning was the word, so the first thing is the word, the sound, so it’s important for it to be uncensored so you can say what you need to say. We really believe that the culture cures,” she said. “This is the only place you can do it. I’m a poet. I’m just writing about this, but maybe it’s something you’re healing from. And censorship has no place in that healing.”
Ekundayo noticed a void in Denver’s community after working on an international women’s film festival. Black people were looking for opportunities to vent based on an identity separate from the mainstream identity.
“At that time when we developed Café Nuba it was really about black people having a voice,” she said. She saw a need for a place where black artists could share their creative projects and their thoughts.
So Café Nuba was created in Five Points, the original urban mic, Ekundayo said. Open for anyone, black or white, and anything they wanted to come up and do—poetry, speeches, songs, or announcements.
Café Nuba’s open mic nurtured slam poets, who decided they wanted to go out for Denver’s competitive slam poetry team, which came out of the Mercury Café.
“In the same vein where there wasn’t a space for urban voices to be heard, when poets of color would show up at their slam, they couldn’t make the team,” she said. “It wasn’t hostile territory but it was definitely foreign territory.”
After working their way onto the team and aiding the Mercury Café slam team to a first-place win at the National Poetry Slam competition, these poets launched their own team: Slam Nuba. They took fourth their first year at the National Poetry Slam competition.
“Art activism is who we are. The Slam Nuba team is known to be one of the most political and activist teams in the country,” she said. “We are coming in with our culture. We love it, we respect it, we will perpetuate it, and we’re not going to hold any punches.”
“It was pretty much the first uncensored mic,” she said. They welcomed all ages, but, she said, “We would say, ‘It’s uncensored, so if somebody gets up and starts reading lesbian erotica, don’t get it twisted.’”
And 11 years later, there’s still no place for censorship at Café Nuba. So they’re getting together to celebrate.
“We wanted to honor the voice of the voiceless, our ancestors who didn’t all have the opportunity to say what they wanted to say or needed to say,” Ekundayo said. “The voice of the voiceless has a mic now.”
After collecting the most points at Slam Nuba, Lucifury recited the poem he said proved that words could do magic.
“Why does your mouth taste like the only language you ever spoke was the tongue of the answered prayer?” he said. “Somewhere out there there’s a promise that the finite steps that we take here on earth will come with a matching set of footprints.”
Slam Nuba
7:30 p.m. first & last Mondays
Crossroads Theatre
2590 Washington St
Want more?
Café Nuba 11-year anniversary
Feb. 5, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. live television broadcast on Channel 57; 9 p.m. – 11 p.m. live radio on KGNU’s “Dusty Grooves”
Denver Open Media
700 Kalamath St
all ages, all free
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