We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Thee Nathan Gibbs a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Thee Nathan, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I recently was appointed as a member on the board of directors for Spoken Word Productions. We are a non-profit focusing on utilizing spoken word and poetry to assist individuals with coping with life’s struggles and traumas. I was selected by the president Scott Victor. He’s a veteran like myself. He also is an incredible poet and author. We have been working together through performances along with the monthly showcase we put together. It really is a fantastic event. Through our professional interactions we have performed at some of the best venues in Wichita, KS and really have watched the spoken word demographic here blossom. It really means the world to me to be apart of this company because of the service we can provide to the community. With having multiple veterans on the board, as well as, the connections we aim to cultivate with the local youth, we really feel we can make a difference. From my traumatic events through my younger days as well as Vic’s our art really held us together when all we wanted to do was fall apart. We want to provide that to the world.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

My work stems from my own traumas and tribulations. I find it cathartic to put my intangible emotions into something that I can analyze and then explore those feelings. What got me into writing was actually a therapist who recommended I do so in order to cope. After just blasting my mind onto a page and seeing what stuck quit working, I challenged myself through literary devices and really trying to paint the perfect picture of what I was feeling. My most proud moment of performing was at a coffee house here in Wichita. My mother came to one of my performances for the first time so I performed one of my most personal pieces about my childhood. She was in tears. I also got invited to rehearse with some of the greatest poets in the city. BLK SOL, Popeye, Ms KiKiBaybee. These were icons. Dare I say, my idols. Those weren’t what sat with me though. A young lady, someone I had never met before, walked up to me eyes glistening with tears. She hugged me and cried saying I had found the words she felt clawing at her throat. In that moment, I realized that this was no longer about myself coping with life, but to help bring the words to the people who either didn’t have the time or the emotional clarity to explore their own minds. And that’s driven me ever since.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

In all honesty my last deployment suits this perfectly. I was rolling down the tracks to a successful following. And then I had to deploy overseas for 6 months. And I know that seems like a short time in retrospect, but I was performing 2-6 times a month. I had to rebuild all of that when I got back stateside. I lost all buzz and notoriety. My first show back I absolutely bombed it. It was terrible. Everything I felt I wrote was just so derivative. I was writing what I thought people wanted to hear from me. And I almost gave up. Until one of my favorite local poets, Popeye, got to work. He wanted me to get back to where I was. He refused to let me hang it up and started booking me all over Kansas. My first headlining show was because of him. He got me into Ad Astra coffee house in Salina, KS. That was the furthest I had traveled at this point of my poetry career. He saw in me what I couldn’t see in myself. I can never thank him enough for his motivation.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

That is honestly the million dollar question. The best thing society can do is show up. Spotify and pandora and YouTube pay artists based on their contribution to the market share of that genre basically. Where we make our money, where we pay our bills is in merchandise and live performances. All you have to do is show up. One of the monthly showcases I do is free. And we still have had a couple shows where we are basically performing just for the other artists. What society may not understand about artists and creatives, is whether it’s 10 people or 10,000 this art is apart of us. We will always out everything we have into it. So please just come out. See what we have for you. You never know what will speak to you.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thee-Nathan-Gibbs-340478003858247/
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/4bD9b1avluM