28 | The Writer • April 2020

I

It’s early morning in San

Francisco’s Tenderloin

District, misty and cold.

Hypodermic needles and

food wrappers litter the

streets. Two men in

ragged clothing scream at

each other on a corner

across from an outdoor

vegetable market, and one

flashes a knife.

Williams is the author of nine

books, including When the Struggle is

Real: O.G. Rev’s Hip Hop Prayers &

Meditations. “The roots of hip hop lie

in the message that the people in

Africa injected into our bloodstream

and sent over the Atlantic as a sur-

vival system,” he says. “Hip hop is the

spiritual expression of the African-

American people, and, now, to people

from all kinds of backgrounds. Words

are medicine for the most desperate

and dire situations.”

He carries a small notebook with

him to jot down the “word pictures”

that come to him as he’s walking the

streets. “If I see the glint of anger in

someone’s eye, I try to capture it in the

moment, using the first words that

come to me,” he explains. “If I try to

remember reflections, flavors, and sen-

sations later, I find that they’ve lost

their initial fire.”

Williams grew up in Asbury Park,

New Jersey, captivated by Harlem

Renaissance writers Langston Hughes,

Countee Cullen, James Johnson, and

Arna Bontemps. “Oh my goodness,

“WORDS ARE MEDICINE FOR

THE MOST DESPERATE AND

DIRE SITUATIONS.”

A group of men shivers on the side-
walk. People in business suits holding
briefcases stride past them. Students
clutch smartphones on their way to
classes, and tourists walk by with eyes
fixed on their maps.
One man stops – a large man in a
black Oakland A’s hat, with a beaded
wooden rosary draped over his hooded
sweatshirt – and recites a verse from a
hip-hop poem, a prayer he’s written
just for the men.
He’s the Reverend Harry Louis
Williams II, known in Oakland and
the Tenderloin as OG Rev. For the
past two decades, he’s walked the
poorest neighborhoods in the city,
connecting with people through
poetry and prose. His ministry is
clear, writ large on his website:

If you’re looking for a preacher

to just dance, holler and enter-

tain church people, that’s not

me. I’m trying to bring this

world to pimps, hustlers, gang

bangers, meth addicts, at risk

kids, crack slangers and prison-

ers of the state.