Sister Soujah who is travelling to promote her writings intended to “move the soul” brought her show to Toronto recently.
Born Lisa Williamson, the American hip-hop generation author, activist, recording artist and film producer visited Toronto to promote her lastest book, A Moment of Silence Midnight III.
She told a packed audience at William Doo Auditorium at U of T last Friday that she calls this book her “new joint” and “the thunder” adding that it has been the “most stressful” book she has written.
“Writing comes very easy to me, very naturally to me and I’m very grateful for that. But I get so close to the characters that I’m writing about that as the story is moving in different directions, I’m feeling the emotions of the characters regardless of if it’s a male or female.
“This particular character, Midnight, is very close to me and I see him in my mind all the time. Before I even completed the edit of Midnight III, I had already written the first chapter of Midnight IV,” said Sister Souljah.
She added that “during the time of writing this book, I felt that I was in a dark, dirty, tight space and under pressure.”
The wife, mother and graduate of Rutgers University strongly feels that her books should be included in the curriculum for high school and college students.
She dislikes what American students are taught in school systems across her country and says schools purposely leave out the African origins of civilization.
“To people who say that African people don’t read, can’t read, have a high illiteracy rate, don’t connect, we don’t connect to things that are empty for us, we don’t connect with experiences that are completely foreign to us, if it doesn’t move our souls then we reject it.”
Taking a jab at some books used in the school curriculum for years, Sister Souljah said they may have had some negative impact on people of African, Caribbean and Asian heritage.
Sister Souljah, who served as executive director of Daddy’s House Social Programs Inc., a non-profit corporation for urban youth, financed by rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and by record label Bad Boys Entertainment, gained prominence over former U.S. president, Bill Clinton’s criticism of her remarks about race in the States during the 1992 presidential campaign.
Clinton’s well-known repudiation of her comments led to what is now known in politics as the Sister Souljah Movement.
In an interview conducted May 13, 1992, she was quoted in the Washington Post as saying “If Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?”
Some of her books have placed in the top 10 New York Times best seller list, including her first novel, The Coldest Winter Ever, expected to go into a film production by the end of this year.
The Bronx, New York, native, who describes herself as an “international ghetto girl,” having grown up in a family on welfare and lived on food stamps, said she has connected with people at the “street level, the hood and prison.
“When I write books, I do an incredible amount of research because I want to be able to present you with stories that are as raw, as genuine as true as possible. I’m not engaging you in fantasy; I’m engaging you in things that happen in our everyday lives.”