That Black joy real loud
when it come from the other side
of benign neglect.
A rebellious affirmation so beautiful
you can’t help but be taken
in by the dark.
Can’t help but give in
to a resounding amen
blaring through the speakers
of a candy-painted ‘lac,
a heaven-hued DeVille.
Ain’t no ignoring this peace.
Ain’t no taming this revelry.
Ain’t no turning down this song.
All you can do is wait for there to be light.
Pray to your ignorance that you
can be saved by the
dawn. 
See round the Dirty,
         Joy
comes proud and resolute
and Black.
         Love
comes welcoming and warm
and Black.
         Tradition
comes meaningful and miraculou
sand Black.
         God’s grace
Can come at any moment.
         Elder wisdom
be full of truth and dedication.
         JBLs
be full of battle cries and corner store
hymns.

Here in the dirty,
that bass is deep and strong.
Be the pulse of a city where
those in power tend to love to place
inadequate resources and blame.
Round here, we laugh at their confusion.
Leave them trying to understand
how resilience turns
that neglect into eclipses.
Just passing fancy.
Ain’t no way you can overshadow
the brilliance over here for too long.

Down in the dirty,
we dance with the moon.
Move to the rhythm of a prevailing notion
that Black achievement ain’t luck.
It’s legacy and lineage.
It’s brilliance and beauty.
It’s a whole truth and a
chopped and screwed nothing
but the truth so help
us move like the God in all of us.
That’s why we let the movement play.
Let the bounce move us.
Get crunk cuz who we wit be our folk.
No matter the opposition
we gone sing fight songs between
shots of stump.
Raise elbows in resistance.
Ad lib like a church house on fire
with the Holy Ghost.
Ayeee … men.

Perseverance is a celebration in the dirty.
Where we show up with a fashion forward
sense of survival and overcoming.
Wearing Martin’s dream and
Buddy Guy’s blues.
Down here,
we turn streets into runways.
Turn promise, purpose, and strategy
into a southern couture.
You see this walk all purposeful?
You see this turn giving all transformative?
You see the look?
Ain’t that pride?
Ain’t that you ain’t seen nothing
this got damn fabulous?
Ain’t this beautiful plucking all
of your heart strings like
Sister Rosetta taught us to do? 
You gotta applaud how this
melanin chic is all bold and rebellious.
This here kinda resolute is by design.
Fabricated in the back of churches,
in the living rooms of cadre, or
in the conference room of a sympathetic
blessing.
Concocted in the corner of a juke joint,
at the card table of the liquor house, or
over a plate of chicken at the strip club.
Ain’t no shame in all the places
we find heaven, will, and determination.
We get ours how we get it.
Ain’t no hiding round these parts.We gone let you see
all this magnificent
unabashed authentic.
Let you marvel at all this glorious.
Let you wish for an invitation.
Let you wonder
how it is we continue to survive.
It is because we are an
unapologetic earthquake
riding on vogues.
Woofer and tweeter ringing clear.
A heavy 808 shake that announces
to the entire world that
we still here.

Dasan Ahanu is an award-winning poet, playwright, cultural organizer, performing artist, and scholar. He is an alumnus of Harvard University’s Nasir Jones Fellowship and North Carolina’s 2023 Piedmont Laureate for poetry. He has collaborated with many jazz, soul, and hip-hop artists, published extensively, performed nationwide, and authored seven poetry collections.