She’s performed with The Roots. She has recorded five albums. She’s a 2018 Pew Fellowship Award-winner. She’s Philly’s Queen of Poetry and don’t dare call her a “Spoken Word Artist”. She is Ursula Rucker.
Ursula Rucker was born and raised in Philly by parents she referred to as “Nicetown Gangster meets South Philly girl” in the 1950’s. She has lived in Germantown, Mt. Airy, Northern Liberties, West Philly and possesses a deep love for Philly and is not ashamed to show it.
Ursula was a pivotal player in the early 1990’s Philly music scene. Silk City was the hub for this burgeoning scene that included Rich Medina, King Britt, and The Roots. Her career-changing moment came when The Roots asked Ursula for a last-minute poem called The Unlocking, about a woman coming out on the other side of a gang-bang victoriously. She shares the impact this poem had on her poetry and the freedom she found from censoring herself going forward.
Ursula shared the struggles her parents faced being a mixed-race couple in 1950’s Philadelphia, her writing process, the beauty of Germantown, her fears of offending her family through her work, and her fear of crowd-surfing. She also speaks passionately about the work she is doing in Kensington to help people heal through art and open mic nights.
She also gave us one of the ultimate Philly Blunt segments where she slams a quote by Robert Frost after Johnny asked her what he admitted was an “impossible question to answer.”
We recorded this episode at Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee and Books in Germantown, which is owned by Marc Lamont Hill. Uncle Bobbie’s also serves as a community hub designed for sharing, building, learning, laughing, debating, and eating.
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