An anxious audience waited in the Education Auditorium on Friday, January 24th when Friday Night Fever brought the Asia Project to the University to perform as a part of the MLK Days of Dialogue. By the end of the event the audience was reverent with awe of The Asia project, an event performed with overflowing excitement and emotion.
The Days of Dialogue are meant to encourage students to experience cultural and diverse learning seminars and entertainment. The Asia Project, consisting of Asia Samson, a spoken word poet and Jollan Aurelio, a guitarist, perfectly fulfilled the requirements of this weeklong event.
The poet, Samson, who was accompanied on guitar by his brother-in-law Aurelio, performed a moving and emotional show. The music was a welcome addition to the performance, but never overpowering of Samson’s voice.
Samson confidently touched on the theme of beauty, relaying the striking line “Do you know why they call it make-up? Because it is a means for you to make up lies about who you are,” and he discussed his own insecurities with being a skinny man. Many of his poems were about societal pressures for both men and women to attain a certain cultural ideal.
His poetry was ripe with themes of self-reflection and faith, but he clearly knows how to be funny too. One poem called “Love You Like the 90’s” had the audience in an uproar, it spoke of mix-tapes, calling girlfriends or boyfriends at home and worrying about having to talk to their parents, throwing rocks at windows, and the ultimate commitment of paging someone 143.
Samson encouraged the audience to laugh out loud, sigh, holler, or even cry, saying that the audience should treat his show like sex; respond to what you like. Even without that encouragement the audience still would have been loud with life. People were excited by words of fortitude, delighted by words of humor, and moved by words of conviction.
Samson himself expressed that whether he performs in front of a crowd of 3,000 or just 3, there will always be conviction in his words. Although these are poems he has performed at many colleges over the course of his career, he speaks with a unwavering confidence that moves listeners to laughter and tears.
Samson uses his own life experiences to write beautiful and relatable poetry. He’s a storyteller, one not trying to trip you up with poetic devices (though he beautifully employs metaphor), but rather he strives to make sure his message is clear to all. New listeners with images of beat nick poets in their minds might worry that the poems will be cryptic and difficult to follow, but Samson speaks straight from his heart and that shines through in his performance.
Samson questions social constructions of beauty, he advocates for strong relationships, and most importantly he reminds his audience to love through his personal anecdotes and poems. The Asia Project had a wonderfully positive message that made the show a perfect addition to the MLK Days of Dialogue.
