Where Hope Meets Hip-Hop

I told 'em, 'Put it in the bag.'

And I realized I wasn't talkin'

through the plexiglass.

Bacon grew up in the violent and long-neglected Condon Terrace neighborhood, where he made butterfly nets out of a pillowcase and wire and collected bottle caps, bamboo and snakes. He talks buoyantly of waking up to his neighborhood's go-go music and springing from bed, hustling to claim an open bucket, trash can or paint can. Usually, though, he would find himself pounding on the fence, clanging it, he says, "like it's a cowbell."

He started studying graphic design at Montgomery College, but the financial aid fell through, he says. "I didn't fill out the paperwork right, or some kind of craziness." He owes $3,000, he says.

So he's cobbling together money by teaching kids through the National Organization of Concerned Black Men and the American Poetry Museum. He keeps writing songs and sketching in a book he carries everywhere, and he calls himself a "musician, composer, emcee, spoken-word artist." He hosts regular open mike shows in the District.

He is, in essence, coloring himself into the D.C. Underground, as this wide stripe of D.C. artistry calls itself -- this swath of creativity and composition, this subculture that harks back to the glory days of D.C.'s Harlem and continues to thrive on U Street.

Armah has high hopes for his protege: "I'm an artist," Armah says. "I'm excited about my stuff. But Chris is the future. He's a very talented dude."

Bacon's mother remembers the first rap song her son ever did, at Hart Middle School, she says. The song mortifies him now, but she keeps the lyrics in the back room of her Southeast home with all of her son's other awards and mementos.

The song is called "Anything."

And the hook -- the chorus -- has something to say about a boy who grew up east of the river, a place that can be, he says, "a sea of despair." It's got something to say about a kid whose mother always told him, "Flip the negative into something positive, and make it work for you."

The hook goes like this:

"I'm Chris Bacon. I can do anything."