Sankofa
Don’t be fooled by his madcap performances in the whatzup Battle of the Bands III; Stephen “Sankofa” Bryden isn’t always totally comfortable with his newfound role as the figurehead of the Fort Wayne hip-hop scene. After coming in second place out of 60 bands in this year’s much-attended competition, not even Bryden will deny his place in the local scene, admitting that “whether or not I care, I feel my level of visibility in the scene makes me a figurehead of sorts. Believe me when I say I’d happily be invisible when the show is done.” Things are quite the contrary right now for Bryden as nearly every music-minded Fort Wayne resident seems to have either seen a Sankofa show or heard all about one from someone else. Not long ago Bryden was known, at most, as the tall, bearded guy with shiny basketball shoes and a video camera in the crowd at the 2004 Whammy Awards. Now, less than three years later, Bryden is not just the BOTBIII runner-up, but also one of the more recognizable, socially active guys you’re likely to find around town. And oh, did I mention that his Still Means Something album nearly walked away with the 2005 Whammy for local Album of the Year?
With recognition and praise stacking up a little more with each of his endeavors, you, the loyal whatzup reader, very likely can’t wait to see what the almighty Sankofa has in store for you next. As the saying goes, every great song has a story behind it that is just as inspiring as the musical translation. Bryden’s, for one, is a story of epic proportions – crammed full with adventures, struggles and both personal and artistic growth.
Coincidentally, I discovered Bryden’s music via the Internet in 2000. A year or so after first hearing snippets of his work on the then popular mp3.com website (the MySpace of it’s time), I found myself sweating midsummer bullets in Bryden’s mother’s upper level apartment in the historic West Central neighborhood of downtown Fort Wayne. Freshly withered down to a thin, bearded man with bleeding ears, Bryden had only days earlier arrived in Fort Wayne, the latest stop on his nomadic trek around the country where he had just completed 662 miles of the great Appalachian Trail.
After brief introductions, Bryden informed me that he had left the trail to surprise his mom - who had just moved to Fort Wayne - only to find a temporarily empty house. A fallback of his exploratory nature, Bryden found himself without possessions, food or a real clear idea of what his next move should be. The man, literally, had nothing more than the clothes on his back, the songs in his head and a credit card tucked into a ziplock bag.
First things first; we headed to the grocery to get food and toothpicks, a staple to Bryden’s routine. As the day went on I persistently asked questions. Bryden gave increasingly elaborate answers, often wavering into stories of his travels and friends, always eventually finding his way back to the focus of his current subsistence, hip-hop music – most prominently the then unrecorded Rosetta Stone album he’d be carrying in his head for 662 miles. Bryden also began discussing the upcoming 2001 Scribble Jam event in Cincinnati, which I was also planning to attend. Already committed to the exclusive emcee battle portion of the event and a performance with his group at the time, The White Collar Criminals, Bryden and I decided to meet back up before the weekend of the Scribble Jam, talk some music and come up with more concrete plans for our impending adventure.
Four and a half years later, on the brink of the preliminary round of the Battle of the Bands, you’d have found me hard at work on a Saturday afternoon – slinging pop-rock and death metal CDs to kids too old not to know better. Just as soon as the mid-afternoon rush hits, in walks Bryden looking a bit out of his element. “I just bought two rings dude, my head is spinning; I think I’m gonna go take a nap,” he said without so much as a breath of ‘hello.’ I look over and see his then girlfriend (now fiancé) Jenn Nickell, who also seemed slightly dazed.
Slow to the punch as ever, I too fall into a spiraling world of momentary puzzlement. Notorious for not knowing what to say when put on the spot, I congratulated them on the news, asked them their business at the mall (duh, to buy the rings) and asked Stephen to call me in a couple of hours to discuss a pending writing project.
A few hours later I found myself at Bryden’s mom’s house for the first time since our bloody introduction. As “Mom” bubbles with excitement over the good news, good-news phones are passed and I’m eventually led to an upstairs studio where Bryden is assembling a beat CD for his set to take place in a few hours later at the old Convolution Records location.
Bryden first found his way into the local hip-hop scene by happenstance a few years ago when his now-defunct public access television program, “Shoes and Movies,” led him to national street dance champion/local show promoter Josh “Jedi Glide” Rowlett. The two bonded over their love of hip-hop culture and quickly began feeding off of each others energy. As time went on, Bryden seemed increasingly more interested in the local hip-hop scene and thus, more open to the idea of taking up long-term residence in Fort Wayne.
Sub-Surface emcee, Levon “Rhymewise37” Williams recalls his initial dealings with Bryden candidly, “I didn’t hear about Sankofa until the summer of 2004 – around the time of the first 32 Deadly Masters event. I asked Glide about him, since I had never heard of him; all Glide said was something to the effect of ‘prepare to be impressed’ and that was it. Once I did meet him, he tried to give a copy of The Rosetta Stone – we ended up quibbling over how much I should pay. I really didn’t know what to think of him then. The first time I even really got to listen to him was in the first round of the 32 Deadly Masters emcee battle, when he battled (House of H.E.M.P. member) Cheezus. Just by knowing Cheezus’ status as one of the area’s top battle emcees, and by the look of Sankofa (plaid shirt, blue Ford hat, lumberjack beard, and kangaroo-skin Adidas), I remember thinking ‘that sucks he got Cheezus in the first round; he’s done.’ He ended up surprising the hell out of everybody. I mean, he lost, but he came better and stronger than I think anybody expected. He earned a lot of fans that night.”
With hip-hop culture and scene building ideas on his mind arguably more than anyone else you’ll come across in the Fortress City, Glide offers some insight into Bryden, sans his Sankofa costume. “Stephen is a very intellectual person. He’s a very positive, fun and unique individual. A lot of people see a complete different guy up on stage, but I don’t at all. I just see a Stephen that is being represented through the art of emceeing. Hip-hop has a way of making your soul and experiences come through with your element. Whether it be rapping, breaking, graffiti, or djing, it’s a parallel to one’s life. So in reality, when I see Sankofa on stage I see a super version of Stephen. There’s really no difference, expect the microphone gives him superpowers.”
For a man of his age, Bryden has done his share of living and seen his share of the world. After spending his childhood in Belmont, Australia, he moved to North Mankato, Minnesota for his teenage years, eventually relocating to Saint Peter where he attended Gustavus Adolphus College. Upon graduating, Bryden went onto Changchun, China, where he taught for a year, eventually landing back in Minnesota for a period before heading out to California to work on music and be with friends.
In time Los Angeles seemed disadvantageous, thus leading Bryden to the escape of the Appalachian Trail and eventually the trap of the Fortress City. Now, ostensibly committed to the Three Rivers city, Bryden has taken an interest in things other than his art.
“Access Fort Wayne was my first step into becoming a Fort Wayne local – they really helped me feel at home. It kills me to see the old buildings torn down. It seems like this city has so much promise, but downtown is tumbleweed central once the weekend sun rises. Fort Wayne strikes me as more a collection of communities than a city – there’s no real geographic cohesiveness. It’s almost like the zoning board fell asleep at the map.”
While 2004 saw Bryden coming into his own as a resident, 2005 saw his exposure grow greatly. “Stephen did a lot in 2005 to get his name out there,” says Glide. “I mean the guy was averaging almost three shows a month all the way through the year. He opened for national groups like Glue; he pushed his merchandise and at times used it as a crowd control tool during his stage shows. You had people all over the Fortress rocking Sankofa shirts. He killed it on the work ethic, and it shows. Also, his music is very likeable to people of all genres. A lot of hardcore, punk and rock lovers feel Sankofa’s stuff. He’s diverse, and that comes in great use on a promotional level.”
Rhymewise37 also had much to add about Bryden’s success. “Dude really put his foot down in the Fort Wayne hip-hop scene in 2005. It’s him as a person; people dig him, and even though he probably doesn’t consider himself a people person he does all right. And then there’s also an element of crossover appeal. Basically, he’s white and he raps, so for a lot of people in the rock scene it’s already a lock. I think although its really messed up on a lot of levels, a lot of people in this (still) very rock-centric town who would be close minded to hip-hop will listen to Sankofa because he’s less threatening to them or whatever. But like I said, the positive side to it all is that he’s opening a lot of people’s eyes to the music and I know he’s well aware of what’s going on. I respect that about him.”
As one of the Fort’s most prominent performers in 2005, many had plenty to say on local message boards following a Sankofa show. Whether he’s dancing during sets or a crowd member, you could always find Glide front and center during Bryden’s sets. “He’s one of Fort Wayne’s greatest entertainers right now,” says Glide. “I mean, he jumped from a tree and dove into the Freimann Square fountain in the middle of his 2005 Three Rivers Festival set – then hopped back out and continued to rock another song. That’s not something you see every day. You never know what he’ll be wearing at his shows; it could be just basic hip-hop gear or it could be purple footsy pajamas. You just never know what to expect at his shows. That’s what makes his performances so dope to me. He backs his art with a give-all performance for the sake of the crowd’s enjoyment.”
With his music and live show gaining more and more attention, Bryden keeps pushing forward, not only on his next project, which he has dubbed The Tortoise Hustle, but also on his personal life. Looking back to the night of his dizzying engagement, I found myself shadowing Bryden as he prepared for his set at the aforementioned Convolution show. Suddenly Bryden seemed more interested in talking about his personal happenings than his music.
“My next album is the release I care least about. My life is full,” he said. “Upon meeting Jenn, all my priorities dropped three notches. I used to be able to get a beat, write to it, record it and have it mailed to the producer in about three hours. Now I get a beat from (Tortoise Hustle producer) El-Keter and let it marinate. The way I look at it, final versions of all songs will be banged out in a short time period. I plan to put it out myself, maybe 300 copies or so and just keep it small. It should drop in 2007, but I have a wedding and such to save up for now, so who knows.”
Before the show began we chatted with EDS and photographer FlashOne before eventually going on to explore the innards of Convolution. Somewhere along the way I was finally able to get the story of Bryden’s beginnings as a hip-hop artist.
“My school buddies had a garage band,” Bryden explained. “Once Rage Against the Machine became popular they said, ‘You listen to rap, so you can rap for us.’ That got me started writing. Outside of two jam sessions nothing other than memories came of it. I typed lyrics online starting in ’95 and didn’t consider making songs until visiting [his rap mentor] Kashal-Tee in ’98. That’s when he taught me the fours, and I recorded my first song, ‘Emasculation.’”
Eventually Bryden found his way back to what had become the real topic of the day, his recent engagement. “Impending, thinking about it makes me smile because of the possibility of something more than just me. It’s not Jenn and I, it’s us, and that’s as simply as I can put it.”
With The Tortoise Hustle well under way, a couple of “classic” performances at the Battle of the Bands, Whammy nominee cred and a solid base of good friends, things seem to be going as well as ever for both Stephen Bryden and Sankofa.
Before meeting Jenn, Bryden had already made his commitment to family life and his work clear, often talking candidly about his mom – who he describes as “The one I run to. She’s brave, compassionate, adventurous, silly and always supportive of me doing that which I love.
“After graduating college, I told Mom I’d never be a teacher because my family history is such. Flash forward to Fort Wayne, and I’ve been doing substitute teacher work for about four and a half years now. I really enjoy working with children and have been fortunate enough to find a job in that field. I’m too late to go back to school this year for my teaching degree, but I fully intend to do so as soon as possible. Seeing kids I taught in kindergarten who are now in third grade is a bittersweet sensation.”
To go along with his recent BOTB success, Bryden has even bigger things on the horizon such as a wedding, new career moves and fresh music projects. Stephen Bryden, or Sankofa, depending on the accomplishments, seems to have things pretty well in place these days, and Fort Wayne is the better for it. Just ask anyone who saw his performance in this year’s Battle of the Bands semifinals.