Who Is She?

Sarah Jones

Sarah Jones is a poet, spoken word performer, actor and playwright. She attended Bryn Mawr College where she was the recipient of the Mellon Minority Fellowship, then returned to New York and began performing, eventually winning the Nuyorican Poets Café's 1997 Grand Slam Championship and working with such artists as Paul Simon, Derek Walcott and Gil Scott-Heron. Jones' Drama Desk award-nominated solo show Surface Transit has been presented at PS122, the American Place Theatre, and at HBO's Aspen Comedy Arts Festival where it won the Best One Person Show award, 2000 after touring internationally.

Jones' work has also been featured on albums including the Lyricist Lounge, Vol. 1, and published in numerous magazines and anthologies including Step Into A World (Wiley & Sons 2000). She has performed in such diverse settings as Lincoln Center, The Apollo Theater, Riker's Island, The Public Theater and the 92nd Street Y. She is the recipient of grants and funding from Poets and Writers/NYFA and the Ford Foundation. Her critically acclaimed second solo show, Women Can't Wait, was commissioned by international women's rights organization Equality Now, and performed at the United Nations where it was introduced by Gwyneth Paltrow for the International Conference on Women's Rights, June 2000.

Jones was chosen by Time Magazine as a person to watch, featured as the "It" performer of the year on Entertainment Weekly's "It List", and counted among Variety's top ten comedic talents of the year, all in 2000, the same year she was Ms. Magazine's October cover "girl".

Jones has been featured on Nightline, ABC World News, and in PBS' award-winning City Life series; appeared in the Spike Lee film Bamboozled; starred in the celebrated Vagina Monologues off-Broadway and in LA; and recently premiered her third piece, Waking the American Dream, on immigrant rights for the National Immigration Forum. Jones also performed solo and with partner, poet Steve Colman, throughout South Africa, Europe, India and Nepal in 2001.

In her "spare time" and with the help of Gloria Steinem, Russell Simmons, and other supporters, Jones is fighting the FCC's censorship of her celebrated, anti-misogynist poem/song, Your Revolution, from radio airplay with an historic lawsuit. Jones (performing Your Revolution) and Colman are both featured on Simmons' Def Poetry on HBO. www.sarahjonesonline.com is Jones' new cyberhome, which she invites you to visit.

 

Sarah Jones v. The FCC
Website:  Your Revolution Is Banned

Radio Station: KBOO-FM, Portland, Oregon
Date/Time Broadcast: October 20, 1999, on the program "Soundbox," between 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.

Material Broadcast: "Your Revolution"

(Various female voices)

your revolution
dedicated to all the women and men struggling to keep their self-respect in
this climate of misogyny, money-worship, and mass production of hip-hop's
illegitimate child, "hip-pop", and especially to Gil Scott-Heron, friend,
living legend and proto-rapper, who wrote
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, and
continues to inspire me.

Note:  On May 17, the FCC levied a $7,000 fine on Portland, Oregon, public radio station KBOO-FM for airing "Your Revolution." They claim the song is "indecent" and that its lyrics are intended to "pander and shock." KBOO is currently appealing the ruling.

Click to Hear the banned poem
Your Revolution Will Not Happen Between These Thighs

your revolution will not happen between these thighs
your revolution will not happen between these thighs

the real revolution
ain't about booty size
the Versaces you buys
or the Lexus you drives

and though we've lost Biggie Smalls
your Notorious revolution
will never allow you to lace no
lyrical douche in my bush

your revolution will not be you
killing me softly with Fugees
your revolution ain't gon' knock me up
without no ring and produce little future MCs
because that revolution will not happen between these thighs

your revolution
will not find me in the
backseat of a Jeep with LL
hard as hell
ya know, doin' it & doin' it & doin' it well
ya know, doin' it & doin' it & doin' it well

your revolution will not be you
smackin' it up, flippin' it, or rubbin' it down
nor will it take you downtown or humpin' around
because that revolution will not happen between these thighs

your revolution will not have me singin'
ain't no nigger like the one I got
your revolution will not be you
sending me for no drip drip VD shot

your revolution will not involve me feeling your nature rise
or helping you fantasize
because that revolution will not happen between these thighs
and no, my Jamaican brother, your revolution
will not make you feel boombastic and really fantastic
have you groping in the dark for that rubber wrapped in plastic

you will not be touching your lips to my triple dip of
french vanilla butter pecan chocolate deluxe
or having Akinyele's dream
a six-foot blowjob machine

you wanna subjugate your queen;
think I'ma put it in my mouth
just 'cause you made a few bucks
please brotha please!

your revolution will not be me tossing my weave
making believe I'm some caviar-eating, ghetto mafia clown
or me givin' up my behind just so I can get signed
or maybe have somebody else write my rhymes?
I'm Sarah Jones, not Foxy Brown

your revolution makes me wonder, where could we go
if we could drop the empty pursuit of props and the ego
we'd revolt back to our Roots, use a little Common Sense, on a Quest to make love De La Soul, no pretense...but

your revolution will not be you flexing your little sex and status
to express what you feel;
your revolution will not happen between these thighs
will not happen between these thighs
will not be you shaking and me faking between these thighs
because the revolution, that's right, I say the real revolution, you know the real revolution, when it finally comes, it's gon' be real.
 

The "Your Revolution" cd single can be purchased from Amazon.com by clicking here
click here to buy a copy of the "Your Revolution" chapbook