way to cope with life and tangibles and just cope with life in general. That’s when my writing started, when I was young, at the age of nine or so and it was even earlier than that when I started writing poetry and then venturing into spoken word and from there the rest is history.
FUZIONZ: How did you get your start with Def Poetry Jam?
BRUCE GEORGE: DPJ debuted on HBO in 2002. We were blessed to be able to have six seasons. It won a Tony Award for the Broadway version. I was blessed to be able to bring the concept to Danny Simmons, who brought the concept to Russell Simmons. So Def Poetry Jams is basically a co-creation of Deborah Pointer, Danny Simmons, Russell Simmons and myself. We were able to bring it to HBO and as a result of that, we went on to HBO and the rest was history.
FUZIONZ: Let’s talk about Bandana Republic. What inspired the publication?
BRUCE GEORGE: I came out of the gang culture, growing up in the city. At that time during my youth, in the Bronx, a lot of the landlords were slum lords; they would burn buildings down on purpose, because a lot of people of color were moving in. We had a lot of abandoned buildings and as a
result from that you get gang culture, which arrives from that and crime rises from that. Gang culture is a defense culture; it’s on the defense of something. I was a product of that. Being a part of gang culture is something that’s a part of my history. I became an activist and as I got older I said let me give back in terms of the artistic side of gangs. Everybody in a gang is not a killer or a rapist. It’s a stereotype, because there are people in gangs who are very artistic…and what I wanted to do is to highlight that side as opposed to the negative side. In the book we have such greats as the late Ruby Dee, the late Petey Thomas, Malik Yoba, who was on empire and Dead Prez. Football Hall of Famer, Jim Brown has also written a forward to it. The book doesn’t glorify gangs, it’s just a platform for them to express themselves. Bandana Republic is very near and dear to me, because of the fact it gives these people from that culture it does give them an opportunity to express themselves,