Audio slide show

Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Award-winning poet and Virginia Tech professor Nikki Giovanni (left) shares a laugh with Oni Lasana, a storyteller and teacher from Philadelphia, on Monday. The two were in Tech’s Whittemore Hall to give performances that will accompany a book Giovanni is editing called “Hip Hop Speaks to Children.” Click to see and hear more

BLACKSBURG -- They'll do all right, "for a bunch of old ladies."

That was Nikki Giovanni's prediction as she took the stage Monday with two of her friends to do a little hip hop. The Virginia Tech professor and award-winning poet was joined by storyteller and poet Oni Lasana and Val Gray Ward, an actress, director and producer.

With their own twists mixed in, the trio performed works written decades ago by poets such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Gwendolyn Brooks and turn-of-the century writer Paul Dunbar to make a CD to accompany a book Giovanni is editing called "Hip Hop Speaks to Children."

The book -- a collection of poems and songs -- is set to be released in October and is written for children 7 to 10 years old.

The roots of hip hop run deep, and young people need to know that, Giovanni explained.

"People have wondered, 'Why has hip hop stayed around so long?' It's stayed alive because it's a legitimate art form with legitimate antecedents," she said.

Giovanni said church singing and slave traditions such as hamboning -- a West African dance involving slapping of body parts and stomping to rhythm -- were the forerunners to hip hop. And even the cadence of great political speeches could be adapted to the genre.

That led the group to finish its session in a cramped studio in Tech's Whittemore Hall, performing the 1963 speech given by Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, D.C.

But don't call it the "I Have a Dream Speech," Giovanni said. She prefers to focus on the "cash a check" part. Today's youngsters respond more to that than some dream, she explained.

"You know that girl, she has to get a little more energy and a little more attitude," she said.

And they gave the attitude, freelancing when they got to lines in the speech such as, "They were signing a promissory note." Giovanni echoed, "It was a sorry note."

The idea for the book started a couple of years ago when Giovanni was at the Chicago Book Fair promoting another book she worked on, "Poetry Speaks to Children."

"When are you going to do your hip hop book?" she asked one of the book's editors, Dominique Raccah, in front of a crowd of fans.

Raccah hesitated, but before long, Giovanni had the crowd chanting "hip hop, hip hop."

"It started with such a good spirit," she said.

The plan is for the book to include illustrations and 51 works, ranging from writers such as Langston Hughes to poets such as Maya Angelou and Giovanni to rappers such as Mos Def and Kanye West. The three women opened the session by hamboning "We Real Cool," a 1959 poem by Brooks.

"The cadence that she set up is perfect, and that's what we're trying to show, that these dots do connect," Giovanni said. "We're just trying to take it back from where it goes."

A key ingredient of most performing arts, from opera to rap, is that they were designed to be performed live and in public.

"Life and hip hop and rap -- they really are one take," she said. "If there's anything about to ruin the hip hop generation, it's in the studio," she said. "All of these women coming out of swimming pools, that's studio."

It's easier to say stupid things and objectify people when you're in a studio cut off from those people, Giovanni said.

So Ward, Lasana and Giovanni performed in front of an audience of about 20 people and decided that they would perform everything in one take.

And they did -- almost. Snapping and clapping, Lasana blew through an upbeat rendition of "We Wear the Mask," a poem by Dunbar published in 1896.

"Is that it?" asked Lasana, who specializes in performing Dunbar's poems.

After two more tries, she was satisfied.

A similar hiccup forced the three to redo their version of King's speech.

"Can we do that again?" Ward said after the second attempt.

There were some questions about whether a cellphone that went off in the studio could be heard in the recording of the speech, but Lasana explained it away without missing a beat.

"That was the freedom bell ringing, man."