By Deuce

“For Poesy alone can tell her dreams/With the fine spell of words alone can save/Imagination from the sable charm/And dumb enchantment.” John Keats, “The Fall of Hyperion – A Dream”.

Were he so inclined, there’s no reason the young man, accustomed to the dips and hollows of the Louisville streets he claims as home, couldn’t have gotten it from a trip to, say, the library, or, perhaps, a bookstore in an airport. A well versed chapter in an American History textbook—let alone an entire class—dedicated to the Harlem Renaissance could have proved equal to such a muse. The life and works of Nikki Giovanni, certain collegiate courses focused on the late Makaveli, and even the aesthetics proffered in the literature of a contemporary spokesman like Big Ball (from Eightball and MJG), for instance, could have all endowed his mind, and pen, with the spirit that has tantalized the globe for nearly as long as it’s existed.

But no, for Ace Poetik—rapper, businessman, wordsmith, and scribe—the propensity for poetry came from somewhere much more personal and, more than likely, indelible.

“My grandfather was a poet and he would have notebooks, giant notebooks, full of his poetry that he would write,” Ace recounted. “He used to read them to us and I was just in awe like, ‘that was dope’. But it was something that never clicked with me. But, I guess after that happened in the sixth grade when I got that poem published, I was like, well let me try to actually write more so, maybe, I got that gene, too, that he had.”

“It’s like music and poetry”—Eightball on Big Gipp’s “All Over Your Body”, Mutant Mindframe, 2003.

Today, Ace is either in the lab, at his pre-production facilities at the crib, or rigorously studying the ins and outs of the music industry to which he’s dedicated himself—and his proclivity for writing. If you ask, he’ll tell you about all the different platforms on which he’s marketing his latest single, “Tears of a Melody”. He can tell you how many plays, views, etc., the song and video has garnered. He’ll explain in detail which ones work best, and if you ask him, even why. He’ll talk about the lingering effects of his first project, 2018’s Deeper Than Most, that’s still found on any number of digital streaming platforms.

But if you go back with him to what matters most, or rather, how he got to the space and place he’s in today, he’ll inform you he was about seven or eight when he was captivated by his grandfather’s poems, and in the sixth grade when a poem of his own inking (about a city basketball team) was selected from his class to be published in Courier-Journal, Louisville’s newspaper.

As is the case with many emcees, poetry turned out to be the gateway to a life rife with rhymes and raps for Ace. Nonetheless, it’s striking how firm that foundation of poesy has become, even as he pursues rhyming as a profession. Whether penning odes to and about the various young ladies that came in and out of his life, or putting down a couple of 16s on the mic, there’s no mistaking the stance from whence this artist’s creativity arises.

“I’m more so of a lyricist since I am more so of a writer,” Ace divulged. “So, something I always did with my poems was always speak in a metaphoric tone. So, for me, the transition of actually just writing a rap song, I still use that same undertone of I’m mainly speaking through metaphors the whole time. For me, the transition wasn’t bad because [whether I’m] writing a poem to a female, it’s still a feeling of expression. And, it’s still speaking on a hoping to get her to like me type thing. Making a rap song, you basically want the same thing. You want people to hear it and to like what they hear.”

The rhymer is close to completing a new album which, more than likely, will feature production from his longtime collaborator Reespect. Until then, he’ll be still pushing out poems in the form of raps.

“It’s something that I always took serious and it became my passion to where I was trying to do it 24/7,” he reflected about his present trajectory in the music industry. “For everybody else, it was becoming like a hobby. And it was never a hobby for me even though, technically it was: because I wasn’t getting paid for it at the time. But I always took it so serious that my work ethic with it was ridiculous. Everybody else was more like play around with it and I was like, man, ya’ll not on my level yet. Ya’ll not doing what I’m doing with it.”