How did she answer that question?

Yeah.

Her, her, her decision, you know, and she made this decision as a very young person.

She was just like, "There's no land up in Chicago.

What we going up there to do?" And, you know, because my grandmother was born in 1929, she couldn't vote until she was, like, in her early 40s.

Like, y- she couldn't send her kids to school with white people until, like, 1969.

And she had to work in fields.

These are events that Kiese's mother imprinted on him when he was young.

[laughs]

The countdown got me shook.

Um, I'm so happy to be here.

Listen, I thought a lot about how to ask Tracy questions that, one, I really wanna know answers to, two, that I think y'all would really wanna know answers to.

And so you had to comb through the stacks, like, you know, s- like the stacks to see what Tracy does well, what she do- but also what makes Tracy kinda like uncomfortable.

Okay.

I wanna start with, like, the perfect morning for you in July.

Perfect morning.

Why did that become such a powerful framework for you? Thank you for that.

It became a powerful framework for me because in my own life, I just thought about the numbers of times that I encountered dope artists, revelatory artists from my life, artists who made my insides quake.

Like you, you know, this is what I felt when I read you, Saeed, right? This is what I felt when I read you, Zach.

And then the same shit that I, and again, your work is not just pedagogical, but I did learn something from those things.

And if I go and read your work and then go fucking be a catastrophe to another human, And a catastrophe to another fucking human.

In spite of the work that you all have put out that is in and of itself showing me that we are partially catastrophic, but there's a way out.

And I'm just saying the history of this nation is... millions, I would say, incredible artists, to me, artists, in chicken plants, on the page, everywhere, have shown us a way to be a better, less greedy, more collaborative community slash place and nation world.

It's about life itself, you know? What would you say to someone who's like, I am just totally at a loss? I'm heartbroken, you know?