Tough Love

Valentine's Day with Aya de Leon

"We interrupt this bullshit love poem to bring you an important announcement: Valentine's Day has been canceled. This is not a test," says spoken-word artist Aya de Leon in an authoritative tone. The piece, titled "Valentine's Day," is a bittersweet ode to urban relationships from her debut CD Live at La Peña -- one of many sensitive and startling insights on a collection of word-songs and stories that makes you laugh, smile, wonder, and holler. She tackles injustice, sexism, sensitive guys, cellulite, erotica, deadbeat dads, hard-bodied boys, Mumia Abu Jamal, Vieques, and "affirmative-action programs for women in hip-hop." De Leon, a Harvard graduate, is one of the new woman-of-color writers, a welcome antithesis to today's corporate pop culture. Challenging the status quo with a potent pen and tongue, she speaks truth to power. While growing up in Berkeley, she studied acting with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and became a teen peace activist. In high school during the 1980s, she experienced the rise of hip-hop culture in the East Bay. At Harvard, she joined the Darkroom Writers' Collective in Cambridge to hone her writing. Returning to the Bay Area, she worked briefly as a teacher and youth counselor before giving it up in 2000 to freelance and pursue her artistic inclinations. She dove headfirst into slam poetry, and published the underground chapbooks Love 2K: Sober Love Poems and Prayer Warriors: Poems of Struggle.

This award-winning African-American/Puerto Rican sister, whose first novel is due out next year, has garnered accolades with her one-woman show Thieves in the Temple: The Reclaiming of Hip-Hop. It's helped mature her into a voice of hope and inspiration for a generation besieged by misogyny and violence. De Leon's words are always clear and delivered with pointed passion. This Friday, she celebrates her audio outing by hosting "Love: The Live Version" at La Peña. The two shows will feature Aya and friends: Aurora Levins-Morales, Marvin K. White, Jason "Creative Dwella" Mateo, Sonia Whittle, Hanifah Walidah, Elain Chao, and the poet's mother, Anna de Leon, singing jazz tunes. Showtimes: 7 and 9:30 pm. La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. $12. 510-849-2568. -- Jesse "Chuy" Varela

eastbayexpress.com | originally published: February 12, 2003