Also available as audio-only on iTunes, Spotify, & wherever you get podcasts

Lyrically Twisted takes the stage as the Clique’s first and only rapper of the season! The whole clique delve deep into loneliness while staying LIT AF during the “2 Piece Combo” and LT aka Tyrone Stokes spits his “5 for ya eye” prompt off the top.

[Episode Index]

• “1712/Change” 0:37
  
• Threads & Lines: 3:40
  
• 2 Piece | “Here am I” 16:30
  
• 2 Piece | #poetry: 34:30
  
• 5 For Your Eye | 39:46

Pomona strong! That’s a phrase I’ve been using recently to describe the always-growing art community in Pomona. Lyrically Twisted aka Tyrone Stokes aka the Dope Spot Master is someone raised by the influence of all that is Pomona. Pomona is a place where art grows and evolves, where it never stays in one place, or shape, for too long. Now being lead by this new group of faces, the arts in Pomona continues to grow ever stronger, with people like Tyrone on the frontlines leading by example, inspiring through action.

I met Tyrone at the 17-year-strong open-mic event, a Mic and Dim Lights in downtown Pomona. He booked me to do a show that he runs in downtown called “Pomona Dopeness,” a sort of showcase/workshop/church-service all in one; it was a way for local artists to link up and share the stage, as well as promoting the arts within the newly renovated bar scene lining the downtown Pomona area. It was genuinely great! I can be apprehensive to perform poetry in bars. People do not go to the bar to get “woke,” informed or inspired, but Tyrone managed to showcase the poetry world in a way that made these bar patrons pay attention. He took the inspirational and motivational aspect of the poetry community and adapted it to the bar atmosphere, clearly aiming at a “hip” young crowd. That was the reason I wanted Tyrone to be a part of the Pen Clique; to see a poet, turned rapper, turned entrepreneur and organizer, bring forth his voice and insight into the poetry community into the digital arena of our show.

We shot the episode at The Dope Spot Studios, the studio and art space that Tyrone runs and operates. It’s an older Victorian-style house with a decked-out recording studio space within the renovated garage at the back of the house. You could feel the music in the air that permeates the space of the studio where LT does what he was born to do. And that atmosphere manifested something special for this episode; it’s one of my favorite things about art, those hard left turns that transport your vision of what you had planned into a more vibrant place than you could have imagined. LT, being the emcee that he is, was going to freestyle his “5 For ya eye” prompted piece. It was something that Kuya and I being backpack cypher vets could not have been more on board with. Then, with beat playing from his phone, and mind running between the five word prompt and the other million words an emcee has tucked away on the ready, Tyrone entered that magical flow-state and successfully killed his prompt. And I don’t say successfully because he achieved the task of using all 5 words, but because he did it with that same inspiration and entertaining-zeal that Tyrone puts into all of his work.

LT is someone who has taken the best parts about poetry, hip hop and life, and is mixing it all up to get people motivated to reach their brilliance. From taking the arts into unexpected (or traditionally unwelcoming) spaces, to retaining a positive progressive bent to his music, Tyrone embodied all that we looked for in an emcee to clique up on our show that has a ONE-rapper per season rule. It’s because even though some of us move on to become something other, some of us never stop dreaming, never stop doing, never stop writing, and never stop being a Poet.

Write up by Daniel Hees

[Footnotes]

• Tyrone Stokes AKA Lyrically Twisted: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
• 2 Piece Combo: How To Be Alone by Tanya Davis & Andrea Dorfman
• 2 Piece Combo: #Poetry @callmetascha
• Music by The Dope Spot Studios Produced by Dom V
  
• Intro title & segment transitions animated by Seth Garnes