Using a blend of poetry and rhythm, Marc Bamuthi Joseph provided the keynote address during  UNC Asheville’s weeklong celebration of the life and accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr., drawing a sizable crowd on a chilly Jan. 23 night to Lipinsky Auditorium.

Joseph founded Youth Speaks and cofounded Life Is Living, a “series of festival designed to activate under-resourced parks and affirm peaceful urbal life through hip-hop arts and environmental action.”

He now serves as the director of perfoming arts at Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco while working on projects for the Philadelphia Opera and South Coast Repertory.

The winner of numerous awards, Joseph is billed as one of America’s vital voices in performance, arts education, and artistic curation. In 2007, he made the cover of Smithsonian magazine as one of America’s Top Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences.

He is the artistic director of the seven-part HBO documentary “Russell Simmons Presents Brave New Voices” and an inaugural recipient of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship, which annual recognizes 50 of the country’s “greatest living artists.” 

Following loud applause that simmered to finger-snapping, Joseph’s presentation began with a request for definitions of certain negative words.

“Hate” evoked thoughts of disapproval, lack of acceptance, fear, anger, and pathology.

“Greed” prompted concepts like shame, hunger, instant gratification, selfishness, fear of not having enough, and — one student even suggested “ Walmart.”

“Racism” was, among other things, described as something that black folks cannot be, and “capitalism” conjured images of the devil USA, the freak market, consumption, black markets, the 1 percent and the 99 percent, and trickle-down economics.

Having warmed up the audience, the poet introduced himself. “I’m a brown boy’s first and worst enemy. I am the (N-word) mentality. I live in a box. My ancestral run begins with hate;. . . They had a baby named ignorance. Ignorance fell in love with hate.

“Nothing was safe till capitalism stepped into the frame. Capitalism was a hooker for racism. First, of all racism, we’re going to pretend like you don’t exist. Shortly thereafter, they had my brother, slavery. A few years later, along came me. . . .

“All this light got me twisted. . . . I don’t want to be in the dark. I don’t want to be dark. I don’t want to be in the dark. I don’t want to be dark. I don’t even want to be. . . . That’s all my N-word mentality.”

Following more applause, Joseph turned to dance. He described it as a release from traditional stereotypes. American slaves, he said, were forbidden to use musical instruments, so they expressed themselves through tap dancing.

As he tap-danced, Joseph spoke of his family. He closed that portion of his presentation by my mentioning his concerns for his son. “There is a race to be run and our side is losing. Son, do you know who you are? An ascendant descendant from stars. . . . Cry rivers of tears.”

Joseph then moved on to speak about King. He said he believes it was King’s outspokenness on economic disparity between the races that caused him to be martyred.

“The way I personally think about social justice has everything to do with the environment,” Joseph said. “I think the environmental movement is the movement of the 21st century.”

The movement, he noted, began “a little superficial, and a little segregated.”

Continuing in verse, he spoke, “See Brother Brown and Mother Black, see how dark the day becomes if you bury the sun? If you’re brown, you can’t grow green.”

After what sounded like an ad for living.org, Joseph encouraged members of the audience to blossom where they were planted. “So I want to encourage us all to think of all of these things. Not just the magnanimous words, the lofty intellect, but also the heroic . . . to be invested in your community. The value implicit of staying close to those you love.”

In closing, Joseph waxed poetic with a tribute to King. “For whom America the beautiful? Spacious skies merely mock the blackbird with crippled wing. We slice the blackbird’s throat and ask her why she does not sing. No one remembers there was no head start, no exposure to art.

“We ask the blackbird why she cannot fly while the law is walking off with her wings. So savage we only see equality in 63 black-and-white dreams. Is it so savage to dream in Technicolor prisms tinged in right to be? Is it so savage to dream — at last free?

“To dream at last free. Dream at last free. To dream at last. Free. Free at last. Free at last.”

Following snaps that crescendoed to applause, Joseph fielded a few questions. 

“Do you have any advice for a young man in need of motivation?” a student in the crowd queried.

“Risk,” Joseph replied. “Risk failure. Everything you value — every piece of technology — that was someone failing, at first. Not fearing to risk — nothing happens without a leap of faith...

“Everything that you value... all the technology... that was a lot of people failing at first and not being afraid to risk. Nelson Mandela said our deepest fear isn’t our conditions, but the possibilities.”

Another person asked about the dichotomy between the prosperity preached in black churches and the evils of consumerism and capitalism.

In response, Joseph said prosperity was not necessarily bad. “I think prosperity, success, preaching that, is fine. I think we can have a more balanced relationship between individual success and collective prosperity.”

Asked for advice for starving artists, he replied, “I’m math-smart, I could be rich, I’m convinced. But that’s not the kind of life I planned. So, choose your wealth.”