It’s been four years since writer and South Side native Tanikia Carpenter penned a poem titled “No Grandfathers in Chicago.” The rhyme was Carpenter’s way of responding to an influx of gun violence during the summer of 2021.
She never imagined that her poem would inspire her play cousin, fellow South Side native Chance the Rapper. The poem is the inspiration behind “No More Old Men,” a fan favorite on Chance’s new Star Line album. About a year ago, Chance wrote the song and shared it with Carpenter before the album’s release on Aug. 15. Monumental R&B mastermind Rodney “Darkchild” Jenkins produced the single.
“I saw Chance a few months ago at Auntie Caroline’s funeral. When I saw him, he showed love and was like, ‘the poem that you wrote, I wrote a song about it.’ I was like, wait, what?” Carpenter told The TRiiBE. “It’s good when another artist respects your art. Chance is a Grammy winner; he has a lot of respect [in the music industry]. He respects my art, and it’s brought more attention to it.”
The album’s title pays homage to Jamaican political activist and Pan-Africanist leader Marcus Garvey’s shipping company, The Black Star Line, which launched in 1919. Garvey was the leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and advocated for economic independence and self-determination for the Black diaspora.
“No More Old Men” is an introspective track, with the rapper recalling the older Black men in his life who were integral parts of his South Side upbringing. The crux of the song and poem is that young Black men are dying too soon before they have the opportunity to become old men. It also highlights what communities will miss in their absence: their wisdom, tough love and ingenuity.
“God the Father may love you, the world doesn’t. That’s how I learned to put my dukes up and play the dozens. Lessons and the strategies of love and war. Chessboards and King magazines galore. It’s a lot less love than it was before. It’s a lot less old men than it was before,” Chance raps
In 2021, Chicago recorded 800 homicides, the most in recent history, according to an annual report from the Chicago Police Department. That summer, over the July 4th holiday weekend, there were 74 shooting incidents in which 109 people were shot and 19 were killed; children were among those who were shot.
The summer violence weighed heavily on Carpenter and compelled her to write “No Grandfathers in Chicago.”
“What will we do when the children ask for their grandfathers
and we take them to cemeteries full of tombstones of boys
who never had a chance to become old men?” she wrote in “No Grandfathers in Chicago.”
“I thought about the fact that these young boys will never experience being a grandfather. So whether they were young fathers or not, their lives were just being cut down to 16 years or 23 years,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter’s paternal grandfather, who migrated to Chicago from Mississippi, played a pivotal role in her childhood. He passed away in 1997.
“He was a hard worker and drove a pickup truck. Millennials are one of the last generations to have been able to sit at the table with relatives who may have known someone who was enslaved. My grandfather knew people who were enslaved. So that shaped me as a person,” Carpenter said. “He inspired all of us to be hard workers.”
Through her poem, Carpenter reckons with the ways violence limits young Black men’s ability to grow old and become fixtures in the community for future generations.
“As you grow up and change, you go through different stages, and each stage prepares you for the next,” she explained. “They wouldn’t even experience what it’s like to turn their life around and what it would be like to become one of those old men at the park playing chess, looking back on life and teaching the new youngins.”
After sharing the poem on social media in July 2021, she received positive responses. It caught Chance’s attention. Born Chancellor Bennett, Chance and Carpenter’s husband grew up together, attending the same church.
Chance gave a shoutout to Carpenter during an interview with popular radio personality Angela Yee’s show “Way Up with Angela Yee” on Aug. 15.
“I’m just grateful because people get inspired all the time, and you don’t necessarily have to share your inspiration, but I’m grateful that [Chance] did,” Carpenter said.
The seeds that Carpenter has sown and pored over throughout the years are turning into a harvest. Her stage play “The Last Senior Home in Bronzeville” is currently being workshopped by the Goodman Theatre.
“So a lot of people who have been familiar with my writing are telling me, ‘I’m so happy to see you get your flowers.’” Carpenter said. “I have been writing for a long time, and my writing has done really good. So I feel like my writing is starting to make a splash this year.”
Ultimately, Carpenter hopes the song’s message resonates with people. “I just want people in our city, in Chicago, to slow down, to be slow to anger, and to think about life and to give people a chance to live. To give these boys and these girls and all of us a chance to live,” she said.
