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From Wisconsin Public Radio and PRI, Public Radio International, it's to the best of our knowledge.

I'm Anne Strain Champs.

You know what it's like when you get a song stuck in your head?

You're brushing your teeth or you're fixing breakfast, and you realize that you've been hearing a musical phrase in your head.

So which do you hum?

The words or the music? With great songs, you can't even

think about separating them. Well, it takes a special kind of creativity to put words and music together

like that. The composer Steven Sondheim does it, and so does Jay-Z. And today we're talking with

artists who work with words and music in classical,

jazz, hip-hop, and musical theater. First, M.K. Asante. He's a rapper and he's also a professor

and an award-winning poet. He wrote a memoir recently about growing up rough on the streets of Philadelphia.

It's a book filled with the music and rhythms of hip-hop.

It's called Buck.

Young Buck, Buck, Wild, Buck Shots, Buck Town, Black Buck, Make Buck, Slave Book, Now.

So your book is dedicated to all the young bucks, and there's so many meanings for that term.

I know that's a really loaded term for you.

Can you kind of deconstruct it a bit?

I mean, definitely, you know, for me, it's like I chose buck for all those different reasons.

You know, in Philly, you know, we call each other Young Buck.

So what's up, young Buck also to make a buck, you know, to learn about money and the economy, to go buck wild, you know.

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