The Hilltop Glove Podcast | Monfia Lemons

[00:00:00] Ta-Myia: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Hilltop Glove Podcast. Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Ms.

[00:00:06] Ta-Myia: Monifa Lemons. Monifa is the owner of Haiku Coffee, a black-owned coffee roasting company in Columbia, South Carolina. The company, does not only offer regular coffee, but she sources her coffee directly from Africa. Is that true? That is true. Okay. Before launching Haku Coffee, Monifa was a poetry organization director for eight years.

[00:00:26] Ta-Myia: She is also a poet and spoken word artist herself for more than 20 years after each open mic event, Monifa and her late husband would invite people over for late night coffee. Monifa says she loves the way coffee smells, as you can hear it in the background brewery, and she loves to taste new blends.

[00:00:43] Ta-Myia: She became obsessed with learning about it, and that's when she launched Haiku Coffee, 5, 7 5 in November, 2020. With her four daughters. The name of the business was derived from Hy from Haiku, a form of poetry that consists of 17 syllables. It has five in the first line, [00:01:00] seven in the second, and then five on the last monifa.

[00:01:03] Ta-Myia: Decide, decided to use the name to symbolize that with haiku, there is no room for haiku. 

[00:01:09] Monifa Lemons: There's no room for any mess. Like missing words like. With Haiku, there's no room for playing around with words. You can't. You may, you must. Yeah. You your have to use exact, you can't waste your words with haiku. Okay.

[00:01:21] Monifa Lemons: You can't waste 

[00:01:21] Ta-Myia: your words. You gotta be intentional 

[00:01:22] Monifa Lemons: and strategic. You gotta be intentional and strategic. Mm-hmm. 

[00:01:25] Ta-Myia: Okay. Since then, haiku Coffee has recently started offering their products at Soda City Market, downtown and Columbia, South Carolina, and has grown ever since. Haiku Coffee is looking to grow into a wholesaling at grocery, at multiple grocery stores and across the country.

[00:01:40] Ta-Myia: How are you today? 

[00:01:41] Monifa Lemons: I'm good. I'm wonderful. Thank you so much. 

[00:01:44] Ta-Myia: Thank you for joining us. Oh, I forgot to mention we have a special guest judge today. Ja would you like your own intro into 

[00:01:51] Jah Freedom: oh no, I'm here. I'm just here bashing the glory of Miss because she's amazing. It some smells Fantastic. 

[00:01:57] Monifa Lemons: Are you talking about her or the coffee?

[00:01:58] Monifa Lemons: I try to work on [00:02:00] both. Try to work on my walk by air. My walk by air. Sometimes it's on a 17,000. I can't take it. So 

[00:02:07] Ta-Myia: Monifa we like to start off by telling our guests a little bit more about you. Mm-hmm. You know, we've been working with you for a while now, but give us a little background story about your childhood.

[00:02:16] Ta-Myia: Who and who and what influenced you and what was it like growing up? 

[00:02:19] Monifa Lemons: Yeah. So I grew up, I'm born and raised in New York City, in Queens, New York Lennon Boulevard. I, I was as a child, I was in theater. I'm a theater baby. I was brought up in Black Spectrum Theater Company DJ Pierce, shout out.

[00:02:33] Monifa Lemons: She was my director in most of the shows that I've been in when I was a child. And as I grew up she chose to help me get into high school performing arts. So if. Any of these youngins around here have ever heard of anybody talking about the movie fame to that high school? I went to high school Performing Arts well, when they, they blended both schools together and put the school 65th and Amsterdam right behind Lincoln Center.

[00:02:56] Monifa Lemons: So they put high school performing arts and high school of Music and [00:03:00] arts together. And that, that's the school I went to. I moved here when I was about, oh God. Young 20, had my baby. And Jocelyn and I would just go around the city and just do things together. I was just talking about a sister of mine that just passed away.

[00:03:16] Monifa Lemons: Name is Doha from Doha books. I used to go into that bookstore when Jocelyn was little and complained about nothing happening in South Carolina. I was like, you people are so like, Raft of any artistic culture when it comes to the black community. And she, one day she just told me to shut up, told me to shut up.

[00:03:34] Monifa Lemons: She said, it's not here because you haven't built it. It's not here because you haven't made it. And whatever you need to see, it's, you need to see it. So built it. And so that's when I started doing hosting open mics here. Me and my daughter used to street team together. I started at this, that, and the other, which was down on Harden.

[00:03:50] Monifa Lemons: It's, it's, I think now it's Spectrum. I'm not sure. I think it's Spectrum now, but this, that and the other. Live band dance theater. I hosted open mics by myself just 'cause I didn't see it. I [00:04:00] built it and been doing that ever since 98. Came back to theater a little bit. Did dream Girls and stuff like that here.

[00:04:05] Monifa Lemons: A little, little, little theater here and there. And here I am today, you know. Doing stuffs. As I grew, I try, I'm sorry. As I grew, I tried to do a little bit more for the poetry community and that's when I started. But the vision came from the watering hole for the Watering Hole poetry organization.

[00:04:21] Monifa Lemons: ' cause I came from stage, my business partner at the time came from page poetry and so we decided to build something together and it's still going on. I'm not the director there anymore, but they're still going. And yeah, making things happen for southern poets of color. Excellent. Yeah, that's what I do.

[00:04:39] Monifa Lemons: Could you, 

[00:04:40] DJ And?: I, I just have the interject because I wanted to grab you when you were saying this. Oh, sorry. But do you remember some of these places that you used to actually perform in? 

[00:04:45] Monifa Lemons: Oh, oh my God. Yeah. Here in Columbia, this, that, and the other. I used to have an open mic at Malibu, Mr. Bees. I used to also, I used to be the bartender at Mr.

[00:04:56] Monifa Lemons: V and I would jump from behind the bar, go do a poem, [00:05:00] introduce the next poet, jump back on stage. That's nice. And I would say, tip your lovely bartender before I would finish. Yeah. And the guy who ran that loved me so much, he made me the host of it. And I hosted that for years. Malibu's, if people know a local radio star Venom, Venom's, one of my best friends, but Venom and I used to run the streets just promoting and doing all kinds of stuff together.

[00:05:20] Monifa Lemons: And she and I did the first all female, meaning the band was female. The people on the micro female, the singers, everything was female at Malibu back in the day. We did that first time here in Columbia. Done the library. Every, everything I've done, every, I've done a lot of venues here. Just basically if I talk to somebody, I'm gonna do it.

[00:05:38] Monifa Lemons: If I say I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. If I think it up, I'm gonna do it. I. I don't work with people who just saw Love Jones and wanna just work. It's the first way to get broke. Oh Lord. So I just I work with people that are serious about art. Exactly. Exactly. You ain't serious about art. I can't fool.

[00:05:53] Monifa Lemons: So you like that should be the shirt. Ja. Serious about hate. Fool. Fool. Please get that. Get that T-shirt. Ja. [00:06:00] Yeah, she's done. John. Gonna have it done this week. Press and print. Press and prince. So are you a only child or you siblings? I'm a middle baby i's my mom's problem.

[00:06:09] Jah Freedom: Oldest. I'm technically a middle baby, but I'm the oldest of the last baby. They started 

[00:06:13] Monifa Lemons: all over. It's complicated. Oh, he said it's complicated. It's complicated. My oldest is 32. Mm-hmm. My twins are 17. My baby's 50. So, because my 17 year old twins, one was born three minutes early. Right. She calls herself, her the oldest.

[00:06:29] Monifa Lemons: I'm the oldest around here. I was born three years before all it and, and, and, and the other one does. What's weird is that the one that came out second, she acts like a middle child. Yeah. She really does. I think it's, I think it's a mental thing that's real. Yeah. But that was my mom's problem. When I left New York, I had done all of New York.

[00:06:44] Monifa Lemons: Seriously. Oh yeah. I was horrible. I went to Cosby Show auditions by myself. No, no, no agent, no nothing. I took a picture of myself and brought my own picture to the audition and I read from myself. They was like, where are your parents? I here, what you talking about? Am I getting a role or not?[00:07:00] 

[00:07:00] Monifa Lemons: What's going on? Dang you about your business. She 

[00:07:01] Ta-Myia: from New York. She just said like, they about it. 

[00:07:04] Monifa Lemons: They about it. When, when 

[00:07:05] Jah Freedom: did you, when did you have that? When you realize you had that drive that I'm gonna jump in the pool. Mm-hmm. Spirit that you have about, I'm gonna go get it no matter what. When did you realize that you had it and why is that so important in being creative to have that jump in the jump in the pool first, in the snow spirit?

[00:07:26] Monifa Lemons: I've had it my whole life. Like I've always I think since I was a teen if you let a child from Queens go to take two hours to get to school, One bus and three trains to get to school. You see so much in the city mm-hmm. That you wanna do everything. So I was always a person that just wanted to do everything plus you, you know, I was blessed to go to school with people like, you know, Mark Pitts works with Diddy.

[00:07:50] Monifa Lemons: He's Diddy's right hand man forever. But Mark Pitts went to school with me. A lot of people went to school with me, Cher's daughter, Chaz, and people went to school with me that just did whatever they wanted to do. And so you get to [00:08:00] see it, you know? Yeah. When you, it's real. See it, you're like, okay, I could do this.

[00:08:03] Monifa Lemons: Now. And I think that it's totally necessary to have that drive in you because fear, you know, fear don't play. Yeah. It really don't. And so you have to really have more drive than fear in order to get things done, you know? So not that fear doesn't pop up, but I really don't care about trying. I just try, but it's, mm-hmm.

[00:08:23] Monifa Lemons: How have you 

[00:08:24] Ta-Myia: accomplished so much in Columbia? Like, who's helped you? Over the years or who have you 

[00:08:29] Monifa Lemons: partnered with? Shout out to Mr. Aretha. She just passed last Saturday. Mr. Aretha from Doha Bookstore. You go to oh God, peace, the peace of soul. Peace of soul on on North Main, north Main fami, he's a very good friend of mine and her brothers.

[00:08:44] Monifa Lemons: Used to gimme space. Shout out to T Rock Carl Solomon Law Firm. Yeah, I know T 

[00:08:48] Ta-Myia: Rock. Yeah. Yeah. T 

[00:08:50] Monifa Lemons: Rock was the one that had, he is so cool. Yeah. T Roc used to get tired of me jumping off the jumping out the, out of the, out of the Tia Virgo out the bartender booth. And he, he was like, watch, just host the night.

[00:08:59] Monifa Lemons: I'll paid you. [00:09:00] T Rock gave me my, gave me my, after I did my own open mics. T Rock is the first person to hire me as a host. Cool. Lemme say that. Sean Boyles Carl Solomon, Solomon Law Group. Ed Madden, the former poet lawyer of Columbia, has given me so many opportunities to do and be who I want to be.

[00:09:17] Monifa Lemons: Nicki Finney National Book Award winner two 2014. Mm-hmm. She's one of my mentors and Jasper Arts Columbia Museum of Art one Columbia. Yeah. One Columbia Day. One Columbia been lot for me. They support artists. Mm-hmm. I have to shout out that. Shout them out 'cause they're beautiful. I, soda City now, you know, soda City?

[00:09:34] Monifa Lemons: They didn't, they didn't know what they were doing when they let me, let me loose that soda. Poor thing. Poor things, but go poor things on the rat. You can't stop me. No, they can't. They started, we started out just selling bags of coffee. Wow. Now it's the truth. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Now 

[00:09:50] DJ And?: this next question for you, it has a word in it.

[00:09:53] DJ And?: Which is really interesting. 

[00:09:55] Ta-Myia: Asite as, yeah, I didn't know what it was until I, I was look at Googled 

[00:09:59] Monifa Lemons: it. We see, [00:10:00] you know, 

[00:10:00] Ta-Myia: yeah, go ahead. Is defined as a person who has a love for the art, but also appreciates the beauty of poetry. That was my first time hearing that word. That is wild. Right. So what is the most important aspect of poetry 

[00:10:11] Monifa Lemons: to you?

[00:10:12] Monifa Lemons: Oh man. Is it the words, 

[00:10:15] Ta-Myia: is it the feel? 

[00:10:16] Monifa Lemons: Is it, you know, just being honest. Poetry is, is is very serious to poets that love the honesty of poetry. We, you know, Ja Ja can attest to this. I know you could sit in an open mic and you know who lied. Yes. Really. Facts. You feel it? Yes. You know who lied. Yes. You're not a poet.

[00:10:35] Monifa Lemons: You might not catch it. You think that somebody's saying something really, really profound. But I could sit in a room. And an open mic and somebody get on the mic and I'd be like, man, they really needed some attention to this. Mm-hmm. And that'd be it. Mm-hmm. Got, they just needed attention. 

[00:10:47] Jah Freedom: Got it. And it rubs me the wrong way when I, when I hear it, when it's not coming from a a real place.

[00:10:53] Jah Freedom: You know, I can, you, you can manufacture feelings and I, you can write about certain things, but when you try to [00:11:00] make it yours, but you didn't go through it, you can feel that just like, oh, I can feel it. And it's 

[00:11:05] Monifa Lemons: disgusting. It's stinky. So itsy respectful. It's so disrespectful As 

[00:11:10] Ta-Myia: a poet, you gotta be vulnerable all the time.

[00:11:13] Ta-Myia: Pick you gotta be vulnerable all 

[00:11:14] Monifa Lemons: the time. No so there are poet my hands down. My favorite poet is Patricia Smith. Look her up. She, she won so many times at. I think independent poetry, Sam, or, or Wild Whips, she won so many times. They asked her to not come back. Whoa. Wow. Okay. This is a na, this is a world National poetry competition.

[00:11:34] Monifa Lemons: They asked, she won so many times, they asked her to not come back. Please, please stop coming. We gotta stop giving this award to you. Mm. Then she decided to become like a page poet. Now there's, there's, there's a, there's an invisible line between stage and page poets. They say that it's not there, but it is there.

[00:11:47] Monifa Lemons: And she decided to start writing books, you know, She wrote a whole book on, every single poem is about the death of somebody who got killed by police, black, black children that got killed by police. Right? Mm-hmm. Did she [00:12:00] experience that? No. No. Her only child is a dog. Mm-hmm. She has a dog, is a child.

[00:12:04] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. But do, but she went in and found every single nook and cranny of everything that she needed to in order to write the book. Mm-hmm. If you do not do your work, Poetry is about doing your homework, man. Whether it's your stuff and getting down to the bottom of your stuff or it's whether it's getting down to the bottom of the subject that you want to talk about.

[00:12:23] Monifa Lemons: If you don't do that, real poets will tell you you didn't do it. Mm-hmm. One of my, another person that put me on Kwame Dawes, how I started here with the watering hole was because there's a place called Kave KA in in Brooklyn, and it's like this mecca of black poets. Somebody told me to go find Kwame do and asked him if he'll bring it down here.

[00:12:43] Monifa Lemons: And I went and found him and I said, I don't, I don't know what Kahan is and I don't know what these words are y'all using like haiku and all. I don't know what these things are. I'm stay, I'm, I'm a spoken world artist. Mm-hmm. He's like, I'll bring it down here if you get the people. Mm-hmm. So I filled a room with 30 poets and he brought down this thing [00:13:00] called Kave Kah himself.

[00:13:01] Monifa Lemons: And we did it for two years. Kave Kah, let us come down here and do Kave Kah himself. So Kwame Dass said to me one day, he said, read me a poem. I'll tell you the last time you read a book. Mm wow. And he meant that. Mm, wow. Totally intimidated me because I'm saying to myself, I'm still still doing these pieces that I wrote five years ago.

[00:13:20] Monifa Lemons: They still rocking 'cause. Poem is new everywhere you go. Mm-hmm. The same poem for 10 years, nobody, one person in the room didn't hear it. Right? Yeah. We are like comedians. We move around and just do the same jokes over and over again and people didn't hear it right? But Kwame da says, read me your last poem.

[00:13:34] Monifa Lemons: I'll tell you last poet you read, I tell you who you read. He also said it's okay to copy what somebody's doing because that's the only way to learn how to. Do it yourself, but then you have to actually study and show yourself approved when you, when you read it, when you write the poem, make it your own.

[00:13:49] Monifa Lemons: You gotta make it your own. Yeah. 

[00:13:51] Ta-Myia: That's the same thing my teacher said about art. So that's so crazy that it all goes hand in hand. Mm-hmm. 

[00:13:55] Monifa Lemons: Yeah. It's all right for you. Mm-hmm. For you to copy this person's kind of aesthetic, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because it's the only way you're [00:14:00] gonna come through. Yeah. Right.

[00:14:01] Monifa Lemons: You'll come through. We don't like to listen to other people's music when we vocalists and sing and singing and that's true. I'm sure doing beats. You don't like listen to other people's beats. You don't want none of that stuff on yourself. Right, right. About how, but if you, if you real about your stuff, you can hear everybody's stuff.

[00:14:15] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. It's still gonna come out just as yours. Yeah. You just have 

[00:14:18] Jah Freedom: to learn it. It helps you learn the things that you like, the things that you don't like, and how to achieve those certain frequencies that you, if you just sit in your room, I've never heard someone play and be flat major before. I need to hear somebody playing BFL major.

[00:14:33] Jah Freedom: That's dope. And like, oh, good point. I can do that too. 

[00:14:36] Monifa Lemons: You know, do you know, I did not know that drums can be played in court. In, in, in, in notes. Yes. Until I, I sat in I sat through a whole, like 30 minutes of Quest mm-hmm. Of of Quest. Love playing. Yep. And my sister was like, he's playing in D Major.

[00:14:50] Monifa Lemons: I'm like, what did you, how do you do that? Yeah. You 

[00:14:52] Jah Freedom: can tune your drums, but I did not know. You don't realize that too. A lot of like really intensive producers. [00:15:00] Will tune their drum kits to whatever the song, the frequencies that are playing, and normal people don't get it. Musicians will hear. Mm-hmm. I can't, 

[00:15:09] DJ And?: I gotta play, I gotta play with you on this.

[00:15:11] DJ And?: 'cause it's funny that you say that Watch, it's gonna make so much sense. So drums are percussion, right? Yeah. Xylophone and piano. Both percussions, you play chords and Yeah. Yeah. Messes with you. When you think about 

[00:15:21] Monifa Lemons: right over my head, that makes me 

[00:15:23] Ta-Myia: think about frequency. When Janae put those, the different frequencies in her songs.

[00:15:28] Ta-Myia: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. 

[00:15:30] Monifa Lemons: There is. Mm-hmm. 

[00:15:31] Jah Freedom: But it goes with the poetry too. Mm-hmm hmm. So you have to understand the frequency of the poem that you're delivering. 

[00:15:36] Monifa Lemons: Come on now to understand you. 

[00:15:39] Jah Freedom: It goes into the understanding, like you said, that's real. Where he was saying if you, I can tell when you read the last book, I can tell if you're tapped in to who you are and as a person, your own frequency.

[00:15:49] Jah Freedom: Yeah. When you're writing your poetry, because you hear so many poems. Well, poets. Especially when they're performing live, that they're trying to sound like somebody else, but [00:16:00] found their own voice. Right. You can sound similar to somebody because certain people voices, there are only so many variations of a voice.

[00:16:07] Jah Freedom: Right? Yeah. You know, but the way you say it, how you say it. Is your own frequency and you can tell when po po poets are not copying mm-hmm. Not only their voice, but their words. Mm-hmm. Putting the words together and they have their own vision and Yeah. You know, from your stuff, you are very unique in that you're able to catch that.

[00:16:28] Jah Freedom: Yeah. That people And you like to teach people. Yeah. Hey look, I hear that. But you can do it this way because this is more you, you know? Right. I'm gonna 

[00:16:37] Monifa Lemons: give, I'm gonna give you, 

[00:16:38] Ta-Myia: so how did you find your voice in poetry? 

[00:16:41] Monifa Lemons: The first poems I read on stage belonged to Prince. Okay. I ain't gonna lie. The first poem.

[00:16:47] Monifa Lemons: I'm nothing without your touch, my love. I'm nothing without your kiss to spend each night in your arm. My flower is a man's idea of bliss to something in your arms. Something in the bath. If I was anything in this world, I wanna be the [00:17:00] water and leave your bath. 

[00:17:01] Jah Freedom: Oh, yep. 

[00:17:01] Monifa Lemons: Prince hands unite.

[00:17:03] Monifa Lemons: Alright. I didn't, I didn't co-sign that.

[00:17:05] Monifa Lemons: When was that one from? Under the cherry. Under the cherry Under, yes. Do you 

[00:17:09] Ta-Myia: know your most significant poem? 

[00:17:11] Monifa Lemons: Yeah, I'm hip hop. I'm hip hop. I am Hip hop is my most significant poem. It is a poem that I'm hip hop. And there's another poem that I do called Bitches and Hoes. Both of them, I wrote, oh, I didn't hear that.

[00:17:22] Monifa Lemons: I wrote both of them. I wrote in about 15 minutes each. But then I, I've had to, I had to edit them, but there's nothing that hit my head harder. I was so mad at hip hop that night. I was so just, I was just mad at hip hop. I was tired. I was I'm very, you know, my friends say I start fights about hip hop. I do.

[00:17:41] Monifa Lemons: I don't care. I'll fight anybody about hip hop. I do. ' cause I'm real serious about it. It's, it's like, it's part of, you know, it's my life how I grew up and I don't like anybody playing with that. Mm-hmm. And also we had to fight so hard to get hip hop noticed in and respected. Mm-hmm. In the [00:18:00] world that now you, that it was being taken for granted.

[00:18:03] Monifa Lemons: In my opinion, you don't understand how long it took for us to get in front of a camera. I know you're not playing right? Like, now that we're in front of a camera, y'all gonna play. Mm-hmm. That's how I felt. And so when I wrote I'm hip hop, it was just really like, just me being so frustrated with people and bitches and hoes was me.

[00:18:22] Monifa Lemons: In another room. My daughter, my oldest daughter, When she was a teen, she had some friends over and they kept saying, bitch, bitch, bitch. And I was driving a car and writing a poem on the steering wheel, on a tissue, on one, on I 1 26 getting on the highway, like telling me about some Damn. Yeah. And I wrote that poem in like 15, 20 minutes on napkins.

[00:18:45] Monifa Lemons: I couldn't stop writing. 'cause that's really like serious about how we've You know, and do I use the word? Yeah, I use the word because I think it's hilariously funny when I'm using it with my friends. But I have to watch myself though, because it really does not, it gets thrown around so [00:19:00] much. Mm-hmm.

[00:19:00] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. And your generation, I, I think I give you honor, I give honor to your generation because your generation were the first ones to say, you know, y'all not gonna be hamming us. Like, you not gonna, you are gonna call me a hoe. I'm a hoe. Now what? Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. So it has grown.

[00:19:18] Monifa Lemons: The poem had, you know, it's kind of been left behind because now it's not so harsh to call somebody a hoe. Mm-hmm. Because they take the word a putted. Right. You know what I'm saying? But at that time, I just want people to respect it. How do you 

[00:19:32] Ta-Myia: guys feel about that? People, the significance of a word. Oh, 

[00:19:35] DJ And?: I got, yeah.

[00:19:36] DJ And?: I really, yo. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Especially with words. Yeah. Because especially even gotta bring this one, if you said that we gotta bring in the, the infamous N word. The, yeah, the N word. The one that was put to rest 

[00:19:47] Jah Freedom: by the naacp. So, 

[00:19:49] Monifa Lemons: Ja, go on that one. 

[00:19:50] Jah Freedom: Oh, 

[00:19:51] DJ And?: how do you, how do you feel about that? I got, I gotta get 

[00:19:53] Monifa Lemons: respect to Ja on that word.

[00:19:55] Jah Freedom: Oh, that's tight. Because, because 

[00:19:57] Monifa Lemons: I don't run into it as much as 

[00:19:58] Jah Freedom: you do. Yeah. I run into it a lot. [00:20:00] Yeah. Yeah. For me, and it, I don't see anything wrong with it. I think it's contextual. Mm-hmm. It's where the place is. Come me, myself personally, I rarely say it. Yeah. Yeah. And then when I'm DJing, I try not to in mixed company.

[00:20:16] Jah Freedom: Mm-hmm. And, and in mixed company, I try not to use songs with large amounts of the nmb environment at all. Right. But do I know it exists? Yeah. Are there songs that I'm gonna play depending on the crowd that, you know, like. Down for my, yeah. Ah, yeah. Now, if, if I'm, if I'm here in the south, I'm playing a down south, I'm playing that.

[00:20:40] Jah Freedom: That's what called down. I'm playing that. It's made for that, you know. But if I'm at an art gallery, I'm not going to be playing, gonna be dropping, you know, you Columbia,

[00:20:51] Jah Freedom: you know, and then, and the that's too funny. The bitches and hoes thing, you know, it's like so contextual. If I have. I [00:21:00] have ladies that I know that are friends. They call each, they call. 

[00:21:03] Monifa Lemons: I can't say nothing about that. Me and my bestie, we do, we say, I can't say nothing about that. It's not a, it's not a thing that we don't say, I don't do it.

[00:21:09] Jah Freedom: I don't do it. Yeah. But there are some songs that, like I said, depending on where I'm playing and the crowd that I'm playing for, I may not, you know, but there are certain ones where I know that it's the right environment. Everybody knows these songs already anyway. Mm-hmm. I'm just gonna give 'em what they want.

[00:21:29] Jah Freedom: So I, I, I try not to hold a high moral clause on people on what they like. Mm-hmm. But if it's a one-on-one conversation, then I'll police what they can and can't say to me. Mm-hmm. And what I'll accept for me. Yeah. I said, no, you can't say that to me or around me. I don't care. Or around me. Yeah. You may do it with your friends, but not around me.

[00:21:52] Monifa Lemons: Yeah. With my the, the way that I performed that poem, the Bitches and Hoes poem, I started out with them singing. Sometimes I feel like a [00:22:00] Motherless Child. Mm-hmm. Mm. Because, because you can say the word all, you want to call my mama a bitch and see what happens. That's right. Yeah. That's why I started out, start that poem out like that because it's like, I need you to just think about it.

[00:22:12] Monifa Lemons: It's not, you ain't gotta stop calling somebody that. I just need you to think about it for a second. Mm-hmm. And I think the hip hop piece that I do is, is, is really, I. Just speaking to the fact that you don't just respect what it, where it came from, man, and, and, and don't. My daughter sends me this, the TikTok with this, oh Lord, this boy, if I ever see him in the street, I'm gonna smack him.

[00:22:32] Monifa Lemons: But, not hard, just in the back of his head. But I, I am gonna hit him a minute. Oh, I'll say sorry, but I'm gonna hit him. He says he does the, he makes fun of He makes fun of that kind of, that kind of hiphop. And I was like, you know, that's not my generation. I'm the generation after that.

[00:22:46] Monifa Lemons: Right. But had it not been for then I wouldn't be Right. Correct. You know, had it not been for, you know, Kudi and all of them. It would not, there would not be a Rakim, no. Mm-hmm. So don't, don't do 

[00:22:58] Jah Freedom: that. No, no. [00:23:00] Everything builds on, you 

[00:23:01] Monifa Lemons: know, each other. And so I sent her videos back where I sent her one. Did you see the new video where big Daddy Kane is wrapping over a trap beat?

[00:23:08] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:09] Jah Freedom: I have. Oh, he still got it thickening. He still got it. 

[00:23:12] Monifa Lemons: Still got it. And I was like, there now. Yeah. Whatcha y'all doing now? Yeah. 

[00:23:17] Jah Freedom: Here's the crazy thing. Here's the crazy thing. Here's what I tell people when it comes to like production or poetry and things like that, when people look at the, the generation before them.

[00:23:29] Jah Freedom: Mm-hmm. Or people that came before them. Tell them all the time. Say, look, I can do what you do. Mm-hmm. But can you do what I do? You can't 

[00:23:36] Monifa Lemons: write and that, what is that called? I'll put that 

[00:23:37] DJ And?: on the shirt too. What is that call? Because I think if we could, I can make HIV all day. Yeah. What do we call that? Like the ability, like they have an inability to be able to adapt to Yeah.

[00:23:47] DJ And?: The former way of life, but they're pushing something new that everybody is now. Implementing or assimilating to. Yeah. So because of that, they are the fresh, new, hot ish that's out. Yeah. But they got [00:24:00] zero actual skills. Yeah, I was, we were. All right. So we, my, my brother Kevin, and I, we had this conversation, Uhhuh, it was ongoing conversation about what we call you have style with no substance.

[00:24:12] DJ And?: Yes. And then you have substance. Style. Mm-hmm. And we always tease that we, there's this like ongoing war or battle between the good and the bad. The quote unquote the binary, the off and the on. Mm-hmm. One thing we realized about the bad. Mm-hmm. They 

[00:24:26] Monifa Lemons: got all the style, do they style me dripping,

[00:24:29] Monifa Lemons: just sauce. Sauce. But those people with substance. Our stuff be whack. Yeah, it'd be, I see what you're saying. Colors don't be blending Well, 

[00:24:36] DJ And?: we don't do great. Targeting stuff is janky, but the 

[00:24:40] Monifa Lemons: substance is there in it. But we The shit. Yeah. What it is? Low, low key. Go. Once in while you see j Cole just drop outta nowhere.

[00:24:46] Monifa Lemons: Nobody j Cole, just, he woke up one morning, put a hoodie on and something.

[00:24:51] Jah Freedom: To all aspects of the arts is that we have turned this into a very[00:25:00] capitalist, monetary based art system. Mm-hmm. So we look for the lowest common denominator. So it's not necessarily that the substance. Doesn't have drip is that the style gets more push and gets more money put into it. Because if tomorrow, I tell people this all the time, if I could find a guitar a guitar playing crocodile I, and they can pack in 150.

[00:25:28] Jah Freedom: 150 room bar and they sell out. I could book them anywhere in the city. 100%. It's a crocodile. The place ukulele you. True. You know what I'm saying? True. So what they've found out is that the, if you, if you have these low level, Low vibrational things that people can attach themselves to, and they say, well, I can do that too.

[00:25:53] Jah Freedom: And it makes it more attached to it because when we were coming up, whether it was poetry, art, [00:26:00] music, mm-hmm. We looked up to our heroes as, man, I'll never be able to do that. Now these kids are, oh, I can do that. Okay. Right, right, right. I can 

[00:26:08] Monifa Lemons: do that too. I can do that. I can do that too. Right. But then here's the issue.

[00:26:12] Monifa Lemons: You ready? Here's the 

[00:26:13] DJ And?: problem, Uhhuh, this is what I'm trying, I'm trying to get over this hill to understand this. Mm-hmm. But we're talking about things that are like standard bears, right? Mm-hmm. So we have to like live test standard, right? These kids are saying, yeah, I could do that, I could do that. And then they don't do it.

[00:26:24] DJ And?: Instead, what they do is they give you a beautiful facade. The candy looks great. When you bite into the candy, 

[00:26:29] Monifa Lemons: it's rotten. It's rotten, and that's what's hurt you. There's no follow 

[00:26:32] DJ And?: through. Yeah. Like I'm gonna tell you, like when my man out here who's doing Mr. Ja Morant, what's going on with him right now?

[00:26:37] DJ And?: The gritty is amazing. I love watching his style, the way he plays and performs. Magnificent, magnificent. But when you get into his substance, 

[00:26:44] Monifa Lemons: you're like, I'm not hanging around. I'm not hanging around. But would, yeah, I'm not hanging around because, People don't understand that our generation came from Yo Dennis, Robin can hang with anybody.

[00:26:53] Monifa Lemons: Yeah. Anybody with a dress on in pearls. Exactly. And he can step into any club. Yes. You gonna, you gonna turn, you gonna turn, [00:27:00] you gonna turn? Dennis, Robin the club? Nope. No, because he dressed in Undre. No, no you're not. You know why? 'cause tomorrow he gonna pull back up with some jeans in the sneakers, sneakers on.

[00:27:07] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. And he's still gonna be Dennis Robin. He has that substance. Yep. Mm-hmm. You know what I'm saying? I was thinking about that when lately. Lately they've been showing. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a content creation Hog. Hog. The videos of when people used to go on the Tom join the morning show Yes. Oh, and sing.

[00:27:25] Monifa Lemons: Yes. And you had to go and they would turn the studio on and they showed Fantasia singing and Chris Brown. Right. People singing their first songs where you were like, oh my God. That was the first time so and so was on, was live. You couldn't and, and what did to, what did, what did Tom join to do? He gave his show, Rick Smiley, Ricky Smiley could never, nah.

[00:27:44] Monifa Lemons: Could never have a live studio and invite anybody in. Did you see Jeremiah sing without his, yeah, without 

the 

[00:27:52] DJ And?: auto machines 

[00:27:54] Jah Freedom: and yeah, it's bad. 

[00:27:55] Monifa Lemons: Yeah, it's scary. It's scary. And so there's no substance on the [00:28:00] inside. But that comes from also I think, being cool enough to have. What, what was the, I forget who the, who The female singer is.

[00:28:08] Monifa Lemons: 2 million followers, but nobody bought her album. Oh, yeah. I know 

[00:28:11] Jah Freedom: exactly who you're talking 

[00:28:12] Monifa Lemons: about. But nobody bought her album. Nobody bought, nobody bought it. 2 million followers, and nobody bought her album because 

[00:28:17] Jah Freedom: they, well, she had a bunch of fake followers too.

[00:28:19] DJ And?: This is where I'm about to get to again, talking about the robots. Robots, they grew like these, like they're in an era where you can create. 

[00:28:27] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. 

[00:28:27] DJ And?: Attention. Mm-hmm. Attention is the currency. 

[00:28:30] Jah Freedom: Attention is the currency now. Not even money. Yeah, not even money. Attention 

[00:28:32] DJ And?: is currency anyways. You can create fake attention.

[00:28:35] DJ And?: That fake attention brings you money and actual physical items. So then people see this stuff and they expect or think. Hey, these people must be successful. They must be good at it. Doing why? 'cause he has a Rolex on and he does poetry. Mm. So he must be doing something amazing with his poetry 'cause they got a Rolex and that's money.

[00:28:53] DJ And?: And that person over there, their poetry, it may feel better. And when I hear it, I know it's real, but they got beads 

[00:28:59] Monifa Lemons: on and they're [00:29:00] wooden. I can't mm-hmm. That's a lot. But it's so true. 

[00:29:04] Jah Freedom: Gotta you gotta address it. You, you have to find the, the, the middle ground between. Art and commerce sometimes. Mm-hmm.

[00:29:10] Jah Freedom: And the business and art because to, to be someone so as much as you want to be mm-hmm. A functioning mm-hmm. Hundred percent creative. Yeah. You have to figure out a way to, to sustain it mm-hmm. To where you're able to do it. 

[00:29:28] Monifa Lemons: You're right. You're right. You know, I've had one, I had one post that I had on Instagram.

[00:29:32] Monifa Lemons: I don't, I think it did. Did it did about 750,000 views. Wow. Yeah. The next week, no views because I didn't know I was gonna get 750,000 views off what I did. Oh, my. I didn't know. I didn't know. And so now I'm like, You know, oh, well how do I, and I went on, on YouTube and they said, you gotta keep doing that.

[00:29:52] Monifa Lemons: And I'm like, keep doing what? I dunno. I get the person, I dunno what I did. I just, I just was posting, you'd have to read 

[00:29:58] DJ And?: all the comments to figure 

[00:29:59] Monifa Lemons: out what it [00:30:00] was, what was it? Yeah. You know, that got me all these, all these views, you know what I'm saying? And it got me a lot of followers, but not a lot, lot.

[00:30:06] Monifa Lemons: It's slowing down 3000 follow, but even still, I'm still hurt about it, but I'm hurt about it can't follow. You can click like, but you can't follow really. Yeah. Yeah. But, but it does take you through that, that space of not having any substance to follow it up or have anything that to, to to, to back it up.

[00:30:24] Monifa Lemons: I really I get amazed at people that. Want to have, oh, a club owners that come up to me and go, you know, I wanna have an open mic at my club. First thing I tell them is, we'll be broke for six months. You good? Yeah. That's my first statement. Yeah. Yes. We're broke for six months. You still wanna do it?

[00:30:40] Monifa Lemons: Yeah. And it's always, well, let me give you a call. Yeah, gimme a call because I'm, I'm willing to tell you right now, we're gonna make nothing. We won't make money till about eight months in. You still wanna do it? 'cause I need your prime night. I need you to help me promote it. Mm-hmm. I need the ads. I need all your money going towards this poetry night.

[00:30:57] Monifa Lemons: And that's why you see these open [00:31:00] mics going. Yeah. We moved over to, we moved over to, yeah. Did not have an honest conversation with the owner in the first place. And that's your name that looks like it's bouncing around everywhere. We have a friend Roscoe. Roscoe in in Virginia. In Richmond, Virginia, right?

[00:31:13] Monifa Lemons: Yeah. Roscoe Burnhams. He's also a Watering Hall fellow. He's been in the same spot forever. Only one time did he have to move and he had to move 'cause the club owner kept kind of moving him around and he was like, I can't, my name can't do this. Sure. You know what I'm saying? So this is a person who has the substance behind it.

[00:31:28] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. And they couldn't even follow up and have somebody else go in that room. 'cause that's how much he thought of his name and how much he put behind the substance that he put behind what he does. Mm-hmm. You know? So we have to really just watch what it is that we are doing and how we're doing it.

[00:31:41] Monifa Lemons: My coffee company, it just doesn't make a lot of money right now. And I need money to. To, to, to build a trailer and all of this stuff. I wanna do all of these things with my coffee company and whatever, but I Right. You know, but I had to also realize that the creator just wanted me to kind of calm down and finish doing my, my little coffee cart.

[00:31:57] Monifa Lemons: Yeah. Work that. So this week, this week is [00:32:00] the first time I'll have running water on my coffee cart. But guess what? Three weeks ago, right? I was like, I'm getting a trailer. What? You don't have a sink. Okay. Yeah. You know, calm down. Get your head. Just because you wanna have a trailer doesn't mean you has substance behind it.

[00:32:14] Monifa Lemons: Yeah. Can you run water on this trailer? You gonna get? Mm-hmm. Well, no, I can't, but I want a trailer. It's gonna be cute. I got, I wanna put the sign on it. The designs for it already. Yeah. I got designs for it. 

[00:32:23] Jah Freedom: No, I have something that I, I really wanna ask you because one of the things I really appreciate about you is that you're very articulate in your feelings and emotions.

[00:32:33] Jah Freedom: Mm-hmm. And you're very descriptive. Mm-hmm. So I want you to describe as best as you can, that feeling, because you were talking about it with those two, poems that you have that, that are your two favorites. Describe that feeling that you get. 'cause unless you're a creative, it's very hard to describe, but if there was somebody who could, you would be the person.

[00:32:55] Jah Freedom: Describe. Mm-hmm. Describe the feeling that you get when the universe has [00:33:00] opened up for you and you are able to just create something that doesn't even feel like it's you making it. 

[00:33:06] Monifa Lemons: Oh, isn't, oh really? That's what we doing. That's what we doing.

[00:33:10] Jah Freedom: Great. Great question. Great question. 

[00:33:12] Monifa Lemons: That's a good one. The feeling is like, it's almost, and I, I wish you knew how much. I hate the word surreal. I hate that word. I hate that word doesn't explain it. It's stupid and people keep using it. It's overused. It's overused. Surreal is, is, has become a thing and I don't like it.

[00:33:29] Monifa Lemons: I don't like it at all. Because it's overused. Poor word. It didn't do nothing to me. Didn't nothing to you. That word didn't do nothing to me. 

[00:33:34] Jah Freedom: She about to whoop that 

[00:33:35] Monifa Lemons: behind, whoop that tweet. It's all you, you definitely are witnessing outside of yourself. Yeah. You're witnessing outside of yourself. If you literally just follow what it is.

[00:33:44] Monifa Lemons: I have a serious I have this ebook that I'm. Finishing now, and it's called, there is no Window, and it's about just not, you know, they ain't, you ain't jumping outta nothing. It really wasn't nothing in the first place. It really is your mind. Mm-hmm. It really is your mind that you, that you're jumping out of, you're jumping outside of [00:34:00] your mind to do the thing that, that it keeps on.

[00:34:02] Monifa Lemons: And it's like things just keep on going and going and going. I'll give you an example. I was supposed to meet with Kevin a couple of times about writing a grant for you guys, right? Mm-hmm. And I. Things would just kept happening to me on that day. At that time, boom, boom, boom. Mm-hmm. This morning, my, my, my daughter, my granddaughter's teacher decided last night that there's a field day at the school today.

[00:34:25] Monifa Lemons: Last night she decided, Hey, you did it last night. She decided to tell the parents last night, y'all's day, there's gonna be vendors at the field day tomorrow. Vendors, and my daughter's reading it and she goes, I got this last night and I opened my eyes this morning. I'm like, Now I gotta move my Apple cash over to my cash app.

[00:34:40] Monifa Lemons: Gotta go down to the store and get something and run my cash app card just to get cash out for my granddaughter, blah, blah, blah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Now, meanwhile, let me make you laugh. My daughter had the money for the daggone field trip. I just thought when she said it, she won't. I should be coming.

[00:34:52] Monifa Lemons: Yeah. Half the stuff I ain't have to do. Oh. But, but it's like people that just it, it's just things that just keep coming in front of you. Coming in front of you. Yeah. [00:35:00] Right. I could've easily said to ke, yo, it today is stupid and I can't come. Yeah. What it is is I have to just go, I have to get out of the house today 'cause I'm going to this thing.

[00:35:09] Monifa Lemons: Yeah. Right. The conversation that this man and I had today, I would've never had it had I not shown up. True. You literally have to follow every little tiny step, the little tiny things that are happening because those are the things that are gonna lead to the big thing. Mm-hmm. And when the big thing happens, right.

[00:35:24] Monifa Lemons: It is a, it is like an out of body experience to watch it happen. You don't know how it happened, and then you can back up and see every single step that it took to get there. Watch it happen. One year I had, I have this thing every year called Sundress sands and Spoken word. I have it whenever I'm gonna have it.

[00:35:40] Monifa Lemons: I have it. However I'm have it. Do you know, one year vis, you know, Tavis Brunson, y'all know TVIs. He was just the most amazing thing ever in life. He's gone now. Mm-hmm. He's one of my best friends. We had it at around his birthday. Right. I literally got a. Wasn't gonna do it, couldn't get the money for it.

[00:35:58] Monifa Lemons: Club was like, yo, you got my [00:36:00] money. I was like, nah, I got your money. Let's just do the door together. Okay. Bet. And it just little tiny conversations. We had a private concert by tanking the bangers two nights after that, she was on Jimmy Fallon for the first time. Mm. What? You, you just, you can't, you can't make it up.

[00:36:12] Monifa Lemons: You just gotta literally follow the little things. Follow the bridge from, I have a concert of TA Tank singing Happy Birthday to Tavis on two Notch Road in the bar right by the pool hall. Big lots. Nobody came. It was 30 people, 40, 50 people made me there. Full concept about taking the bangers. Two nights later she was on Jimmy Fallon and everybody was like, Ooh, taking the bang.

[00:36:32] Monifa Lemons: I was like, really? That could have came. It could have came. It was right here. But that's what I'm saying is like, that's the kind of things that are those are the kind of things that, that if you follow the little things on the way, you'll be able to witness and you're not witnessing yourself in the first place.

[00:36:46] Monifa Lemons: Whenever I. Write a poem. That's beautiful. Whenever I perform anything that's gorgeous, I say, it's not my words, as sure as God. It's not my words. They're not my words. Anyway, it's not my stuff anyway. I just get to witness it. Wow. A vessel. Yeah. Yeah. [00:37:00] That's, now I understand what LeBron James is talking about.

[00:37:02] Monifa Lemons: So 

[00:37:03] DJ And?: just to, just to segue, I have to ask you about that. No, seriously. That explained it to me. I always wonder what he meant by witness, like witness what? LeBron. That makes sense. Witnessing stuff. Witness man. He's just, it's just coming through him. It's 

[00:37:13] Jah Freedom: not like everybody. 

[00:37:14] DJ And?: Yeah. He don't know what's going on.

[00:37:16] DJ And?: Man, that was dope. Thank you. Appreciate gosh, the wordsmith. I be 

[00:37:19] Monifa Lemons: trying, bro. I know. Trying high five. 

[00:37:22] DJ And?: So we have to ask you about this before we get to the end. We gotta, we gotta hit with this. So you, of course, you did start talking a little bit about haiku Coffee, 5, 7, 5. Would you delve a little bit more into that?

[00:37:33] DJ And?: Just real quickly explain your journey into discovering the best kinds of coffee in the world and why. Screwing and roasting your own 

[00:37:40] Monifa Lemons: coffee. Mm, I'm okay. Y'all have to forgive me. It's, it's gonna go along a little bit, but y'all edit out whatever you wanna add out. All right. We'll, we'll follow. Me and my husband were going through some stuff.

[00:37:50] Monifa Lemons: In 2015, 2016, he decided that he was going to move to Kentucky. Live with his brother and try to restart his life. And then we were gonna have conversations after. Mm-hmm. [00:38:00] The thing about us getting separated was it was like nobody, nobody would even understand it. Every time we were together, we were together.

[00:38:06] Monifa Lemons: Yeah. Nobody had to talk about whether or not we were gonna stay together. Just when I would come in from Maryland and he would, he would be here and he stayed with my oldest daughter while I was living in Maryland. I, I can't explain that kind of love. I can only tell you it happened. You know what I'm saying?

[00:38:19] Monifa Lemons: We just were together when we were together. So we moved to Kentucky. I took all his children to see him. We said goodbye really lovingly. He called me on Mother's Day of 2016, told me he loved me and how much of a great mother I was, and he left and no one ever saw him again. For two years, disappeared.

[00:38:35] Monifa Lemons: What we found out later was that that June, around that June, he died. On an overpass in Jefferson County, in Lexington, Kentucky. His body was not found till the next year, in February of 2017, they found his body on an overpass when they were born along 35 pounds of bones and skin. Didn't even know if he was a black man or a white man.

[00:38:57] Monifa Lemons: 'cause his legs were so, I had, I'd [00:39:00] have him cremated. So I, and then, and then they found him and then de called me. So my father kept saying, stay married to Ric because. If they find him, they have to tell you they found him. Mm-hmm. 'cause you're married to him. Mm-hmm. That is not the truth. I did not find out till October.

[00:39:14] Monifa Lemons: I'm a child of a cop and my father in the summer of 2018 said, gimme everything you have on looking for Europe. Sent him everything I had and I October 5th, 2018, I found out that he had, he was dead the whole time, so I had to now cremate my husband. Shift his body to me, having memorial service for him.

[00:39:36] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. And I wasn't really his wife, I was kind of his wife, kind of not. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I'm a widow or I'm not, you know what I mean? Ooh. It's a, we, so he has five children, three of 'em in mine, the other two lived down the street. 'cause the other thing we were, where we were was we were a collective family.

[00:39:52] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. His older brother and sister were always with him. You know, everybody who knows me knows you can see Zoe and Caleb anytime. And their [00:40:00] mother has six kids. So, All together, we be, we roll, you know, but we raise the kids together. Mm-hmm. So I started my job teaching poetry at the prison and stuff, and, you know, having to write the word widow, having to check off the box, widow, having to order his, death certificate, things like that.

[00:40:15] Monifa Lemons: Just, I was crushed, but I started a new job and stuff and one night I was going to sleep and I just thought about all the times that poets had come in my house. It didn't matter what time it was. It could be 10 o'clock at night, you're making a cup pot of coffee. And he, they, people would be like you, I can't have no coffee.

[00:40:31] Monifa Lemons: 10 o'clock at night. Next thing you know, it's two o'clock in the morning, we still drinking coffee and we're doing cyphers. Yeah. Tests, all of that. Everybody's been to my house. Everybody we know from the poetry community has been to my house, have coffee with my husband. So I started to, so, so in 2020, in 2018, I, I locked down my platform.

[00:40:49] Monifa Lemons: Haiku Coffee, Instagram, Facebook, everybody. Everything was locked down. Twitter, everything was locked down. I did nothing about it for two years. I just did that. That was it. And then [00:41:00] I finally like, got to the point in 2020 where I just decided to just do it. So I started just I had a hot plate. One of those coffee hot plates, took a half an hour to, to roast a pound of coffee.

[00:41:11] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. Two bags every half an hour is what I had. Yeah. And I had orders out the wazoo first Christmas that we did it. And then the next year I do the same thing. Had to keep roasting coffee. Yeah. Because I just, I'm a type of person. I, I could show you if I, if I'm make a banana pud, I'm making the cookies too.

[00:41:29] Monifa Lemons: Yeah. I don't want buy n wafers. Yeah. I pay nobody for my stuff. How do you make it? I wanna do it myself. So I decided to roast beans. So then I started learning about beans. Then I started learning that every bean that you drink, doesn't matter where you get it from, you can get it from Brazil, you can get it from Columbia.

[00:41:44] Monifa Lemons: It all comes from a city called limu, which is right above Ethiopia. Mm-hmm. Every coffee bean. Mm-hmm. Is birth there and we were traded. They were traded like us. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Feel is the 

[00:41:55] Jah Freedom: birth, is the birthplace of coffee. The birthplace of coffee. Mm-hmm. Most people don't even know that though. Most 

[00:41:58] Monifa Lemons: people don't know that.

[00:41:59] Monifa Lemons: Right. Yeah. [00:42:00] So as I'm learning, I'm learning and I'm like, okay, well I will never buy beans outside of Africa. 'cause that's where they come from. Smart. And so that's why I have, even if I have a blend, I have a African blend. Mm-hmm. Sumatra and Tanzania, whatever. But it's all in honor of Erick Dion Jackson.

[00:42:14] Monifa Lemons: 'cause he was such an artist and such a, he was best friends with Thomas Washington. The artists, they were best friends in high school. They were best friends. They'd known each other forever. And they just created a bunch of stuff together. But how, that's how it started and then it just blew from there.

[00:42:29] Monifa Lemons: And I'm learning how to run a business. 'cause I don't know, I'm used to hosting open mics. I'm used to my business being people. Mm-hmm. I'm not used to business being product. Mm-hmm. So I'm learning and I'm growing. Shout out to Black Coffee out of Atlanta. I'm watching them. I watch people. But my story comes from just being honored, just giving honor to my, my late husband because he, he, he kind of died on his own terms and stuff.

[00:42:54] Monifa Lemons: You don't wanna be here, so we have to just keep on going, you know, and just raising his daughters. [00:43:00] So they are, my, my company's A L l P. My my daughters are my partners. Hey, I'm 51%, though, don't play. 

[00:43:06] Ta-Myia: I love how you just throw stuff in there like don't play. 

[00:43:09] Monifa Lemons: It's for them.

[00:43:10] Monifa Lemons: They'll business. Two of them don't even want this business, so I can't, 

[00:43:13] Jah Freedom: they don't want, my oldest 

[00:43:15] Monifa Lemons: daughter knows what to do if something happened to me with this business. But but yeah, that's how Haiku Coffee started. And really in Chili Haiku, I was a little bit troubled 'cause I wanted to have a coffee that, that meant I was black, you know?

[00:43:25] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. Or I was a woman, but no, no word was, was hitting me like that. My poetry name is Seila. Seila the poet. Yeah. Seila. When you see the word say lie in Psalms, it means I'm done. I'm finished. Mm-hmm. Look back at what was said. Yes. How cool is, you can't play with the words. They got a fit in this 5, 7, 5.

[00:43:45] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. Exactly. Every, where it has to matter. So that's why matters. Matters. Mm-hmm. 

[00:43:51] Ta-Myia: What are some what are some misconceptions about coffee? 

[00:43:54] Monifa Lemons: Coffee actually can help you with kidney disease, can help you from cancer up to five [00:44:00] coffee cups of coffee a day will not harm your body. It actually helps with diabetes as well.

[00:44:05] Monifa Lemons: Hmm. It is the things we put in coffee. There you go. That's why I asked you, you have cream, you have sugar, what kind of sugar? Mm-hmm. You know, because I'll drink black coffee before I put white sugar in it. That's what I do. And if it's, if there's creamer around Yep. I'll have the creamer and that is my sugar and that's it.

[00:44:18] Monifa Lemons: Yep. But shout out to Starbucks. I'll work there for a couple. She, everybody I know I take. I've had 50 million jobs, man. I really have. And you got poor. But I've taken everything from what 

[00:44:30] Ta-Myia: I do. You teaching showing us how to 

[00:44:32] Monifa Lemons: write grants. Yeah. 

[00:44:34] Jah Freedom: But it's good to have a, a, a wealth of knowledge and experiences in this world.

[00:44:39] Jah Freedom: 'cause there are a lot of people out there who, you know, if, if they've only done one or two things, they don't know how to interact with people. Mm-hmm. Preach. They don't know. Preach. Preach. They don't know. They don't know how to. And say if their world changes vastly Yeah. They jumping off roofs. Yeah. You know?

[00:44:55] Jah Freedom: Yeah. Not building. No. We, the people who are able to [00:45:00] maneuver and take chances and look for experiences I took just to do. Mm-hmm. You know what I'm saying? Hey, I ain't done this. 

[00:45:07] Monifa Lemons: What's one of my favorite things? What else am I doing today? Let's do it. Let's 

[00:45:11] Jah Freedom: do this. You know, I, I, I've also found out what I don't like, I had to load a semi-truck by myself.

[00:45:18] Jah Freedom: I did not like that. Never. That is a 

[00:45:20] Monifa Lemons: lot. 

[00:45:20] DJ And?: Never. Yeah, never happen. 

[00:45:23] Monifa Lemons: You've done it. 

[00:45:24] DJ And?: And go install some installation in the south in the summer. 

[00:45:28] Monifa Lemons: I had somebody do my gutters. I had a friend of mine, a friend of my, my friend of his son's came and did my gutters and I was like, you wanna take pictures? Want me and put 'em on online?

[00:45:35] Monifa Lemons: You know me, I'm always starting a business for somebody. Mm-hmm. I'm like, you want me to take pictures? Want me to put 'em online? We should do this on website. He was like, I will never. Again, Jennifer, please don't even refer me like that. Don't do that. Don't send picture. But I did. No, I'll never. 

[00:45:49] Jah Freedom: I this a terrible job 

[00:45:51] Monifa Lemons: and my gun are so pretty.

[00:45:52] Monifa Lemons: I'm like, no, no, no. 

[00:45:55] DJ And?: He just like, after you like work, I'm telling you like I did some weird like housework side work [00:46:00] stuff and some custodial work, but like when you go under a house, Uhhuh, 

[00:46:03] Monifa Lemons: oh, 

[00:46:04] DJ And?: after that I'm gonna tell you like this. Nothing really bothers me anymore. But I don't want to do it again. You go under the house, you're hanging out with the snakes and the rats and the bugs.

[00:46:13] DJ And?: You go in the at Oh my. It cold. That's why I was, I was in the, I went in the attic to do insulation. I was underneath the house to seal up the house. I did all this stuff, and this was for free. Mm-hmm. I was the S j W at the time, and so this was part of my, my burning process that had to, had to do this.

[00:46:29] DJ And?: And so after doing that stuff, I was like, all right, I understand. I, I'm gonna respect when I see them, immigrant workers. Give 'em a beard. Like, do your job, bro. Because I see everybody's not gonna do those jobs. You the ones that are running from Florida. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:46:40] Monifa Lemons: Because we leave, let's to get one Florida now.

[00:46:42] Monifa Lemons: Run Florida. Now. I understand. 

[00:46:44] DJ And?: Yo, seriously, we have take them now we gotta to take them. Beautiful thing. But to wrap up today, we always like to ask people about work life balance because it's so important Yeah. To how we survive and actually experience life and enjoy what we do outside of that. So, Very quickly, just wrapping up, we gotta ask, how [00:47:00] do you find time to balance life being mother as well as running a business?

[00:47:05] DJ And?: Oh, being 

[00:47:05] Jah Freedom: 51%. 

[00:47:06] DJ And?: 51% ownership. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:47:09] Monifa Lemons: I wanna say that it, it, first of all shout out to all the mothers that work outside of the home. Yes. You know, I, I, when people ask me what I do for a living, I do whatever keeps my coffee business open. That's the answer to that question. Mm-hmm. So, I, I, I drive Uber, Lyft, I do, you know, side work.

[00:47:24] Monifa Lemons: I write grants, I do whatever I gotta do the summer. I'll be teaching in the summer school, whatever I gotta do. Yes, ma'am. To keep my coffee business open and keep my children good. Because they call me every day, all day about everything. I'm gonna get a text in a minute about white. I got a text in the middle of a meeting yesterday about white nail polish.

[00:47:40] Monifa Lemons: Bring it home. I bought it already. I need some more. That's how it, that's how it live. 

[00:47:44] Ta-Myia: We shoulda had her on a Mother's Day 

[00:47:46] Monifa Lemons: episode, so next year, my daughters man, my daughters, but they, but they expect me to be that present because that's how I've trained them to be, is that I'm that present. Yeah. I just make sure that I keep them in mind.

[00:47:57] Monifa Lemons: And I use my Google calendar very wisely, [00:48:00] you know, and I keep my things I try to keep my things to where whatever they gotta do, it just gotta come first. It's in your calendar. They're not gonna ever do this again. Yeah. You know, they're not gonna ever be 17 again. You make sacrifice 17 again. So if I gotta drive Uber and Lyft to make sure that the prom experience is everything.

[00:48:18] Monifa Lemons: Mm-hmm. You know, and then sometimes people just bless me and the blessings have come. So on time. So on time for me and my children. So I just thank God for my community. 'cause my community has made sure that I keep on moving, not so I just make sure that they're everything for me. That's it. And I'm not.

[00:48:35] Monifa Lemons: I'm no punk bitch. Thank you. You. I like that. Another thing to put on the shirt. Thing. Put on the shirt. The shirt. Next we see you. I 

[00:48:44] DJ And?: with, with little quotes on it. Mon I'll wear that everywhere. I'm like, like 

[00:48:48] Jah Freedom: go buy some of her work. Boogie 

[00:48:51] Monifa Lemons: be to not be popular. 

[00:48:52] DJ And?: Alright. and of course we, we gotta let you do some shameless plugs.

[00:48:55] DJ And?: Yeah, yeah. This stuff. What, what current projects are you working on and what can we expect from Haiku [00:49:00] coffee and other endeavors in the future? And don't 

[00:49:01] Monifa Lemons: forget to drop your, this is what I, she gonna be with us y'all. She with us. She a part of the team. Shameless plug. She a part of the team. So go ahead and then you can also drop your social media.

[00:49:11] Monifa Lemons: Oh yes. Thank you. I'm working with the PHY team of Create. I absolutely, I'm loving working with Create. They gave me y'all don't, y'all don't even know. And real quick, I have to say this, y'all do not know how what I was going through, I was going through, I had a really bad time with my last partnership and did not want to ever partner with anybody ever again.

[00:49:31] Monifa Lemons: It was something about, Kevin's tenacity. The way that he works that made me wanna work with him. And then to meet all of you guys and what y'all, and to see what y'all do and how y'all work together and what kind of team y'all make. Like I'm honored to even be asked to be a part of this team in any way, shape or form.

[00:49:46] Monifa Lemons: So shout out to create for bringing me back outta my house. Because I wasn't out my house before and I was like, I ain't fool with nobody else. Haiku Coffees still every Saturday at soda City. I'm always in front of Sweet Cream. 1626. Main Street is where [00:50:00] I'm always standing. On Saturdays.

[00:50:02] Monifa Lemons: Haiku Coffee, five seven five.com. Hiku Coffee, 5 7 5. Instagram say, live the creator on TikTok and St. Out, the poet. On Instagram. Just get at me. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm easy to, you know why? 'cause you ain't no punk bitch. Bitch. I know Punk Beach. 

[00:50:19] Jah Freedom: Well, we appreciate you being 

[00:50:21] DJ And?: with us here on Oh thank you. 

[00:50:22] Monifa Lemons: On Top Glove podcast.

Thank 

[00:50:24] DJ And?: you. We appreciate our guest host, your friend and family member free. Come on man. Come and visit us for Ja. You a plug? Yeah. Plug, plug, 

[00:50:33] Jah Freedom: drop, plug. No. No plugs. No plugs. This is all about the lady here. 

[00:50:37] Monifa Lemons: And I, I had to say 

[00:50:38] DJ And?: this one thing before I stop. You know, I've always known, I've only known, known of you by your poet name.

[00:50:44] DJ And?: Yeah. And I just started putting two and two. Yeah. Oh. And that's how I don't, I, when I, when, when he first said, yeah, you gotta meet Monifa, you gotta meet Monifa and every, were telling Yeah, yeah. She the poet. I, I had to put two and two together. I was like, that's the same person. So you, you had that two different people in my mind.

[00:50:58] DJ And?: You were two different people [00:51:00] that came together. Just like I was looking at this, I was like, yeah, that, that is the same person, one human. Okay. excellent. So that makes my darn day um, 

[00:51:07] Monifa Lemons: don't judge anything. When you mix it. When you mix it, don't. 

[00:51:10] DJ And?: But signing off for the Hilltop Glove podcast.

[00:51:13] DJ And?: I'm DJ and what? Tamaya over here? Yes. Skip. Yep. Mike. Oh, quiet Mike. Of course, y'all free. Woo up. We have this wifey cat over here in the, in the hidden, in the doorway area, and then of course, our esteemed guests and colleague. We appreciate you 

[00:51:31] Monifa Lemons: today. Thank you. Thank 

[00:51:32] DJ And?: you guys. Excellent, beautiful. Everybody.

[00:51:35] DJ And?: Have a blessed one. Tell everybody around that you love them. We'll see on the next one. Peace. Peace.