
Tank Ball on Tank and the Bangas’ Grammy-Nominated “The Heart, The Mind, The Soul”
A Poem Is...
Jan 29, 2025 Web Exclusive Photography by Jeremy Tauriac
From the moment Tarriona “Tank” Ball opens her mouth, whether that’s on stage, radio, or a stuttering Zoom call, there is a palpable warmth that flows out of her. It’s evident from the first moment of Tank and the Bangas’ winning Tiny Desk Contest entry from 2017 (and their subsequent official Tiny Desk Concert), in the way she interacts with her bandmates and collaborators, but most of all, in the open generosity of her words. Tank Ball is a multi-hyphenate artistic talent, but above all else, she is a wordsmith.
As long as the band has been releasing music, their sound has been a fiery fusion of R&B, soul, jazz, hip-hop, poetry, and New Orleans culture, with Ball as the lightning strike center of energy. But despite many previous songs featuring Ball’s spoken word poetry, their newest album is the first to be released explicitly as an album of poetry. The Heart, The Mind, The Soul, released in parts as individually themed EPs and each featuring a different producer, is a delightful fusion of the music that has made Tank and the Bangas so irresistible and the poetry that sets Tank Ball apart.
When this conversation happened in October, the Grammy nominations for 2025 had yet to be released. “I definitely want to be in that and I want to take it home. It would be so monumental to me, especially as somebody who has been writing since I was 12 and has been nominated two or three times,” she told me. “The last time I was at the Grammys, I saw the poetry category and thought: ‘That’s me!’ And I got straight to work.”
In the time since, Ball’s dream became one step closer to being realized, with the album being one of five nominees for the Best Spoken Word Poetry Album category. The band have also been releasing live “Poetry On a Porch” sessions on their YouTube, which feature a rotating roster of featured musicians and poets. The videos are full of joy and color, full of that warmth Ball seems to curate wherever she goes.
Ball has expressed a strong desire for poetry to become “even more cool again,” and for “young people to get into the expression of poetry.” Though she is not the first writer to include music as a base for their poetry, there is something about The Heart, The Mind, The Soul that feels like it’s breaking fresh ground. It’s contemporary and groovy, danceable and accessible; but it’s also a beautiful artistic statement from someone who’s in love with their craft and ready for the world to feel that same love. Read below for a Q&A with the Grammy-nominated artist.
Mariel Fechik (Under the Radar): I’m really fascinated by the concept of creating this album in three thematic parts: the heart, the mind, and the soul. That seems like such a big task. How did you approach that?
Tank Ball: We all have a different relationship with our heart, and we have a different relationship with our mind, our body. I decided to release it in parts, and to make them short, because I wanted people to savor it and wait for the next installment. And they really did! It was also important to ingest it in parts. The way I combine [the poetry] with music to make it just a little bit more interesting…I feel like that grabs them a little bit more.
And it was not difficult; it was one of the easiest projects I’ve ever done, because it’s just…it’s me! These are my poems and the little songs I wanted to add in between my little poems! My band members were there, but to just support me and not take over, because they knew that it was a passion project.
I’m also interested in the fact that you chose a different producer for each part. When you have such a specific idea of what you’re looking for on a project, how do you approach that collaboration? Or what do you look for in a collaborator?
Definitely, respect is number one. And liking each other’s music, aside from how you create together—because you can say, “Oh, something like that groove you did on [song example].” That helps. Sometimes I’ll tell them things like what poems I’ve been working on, and I’ll just start speaking a poem right then and there. It’s more organic.
But when I don’t know them at all, I have to take a little more charge in the direction and tell them what I’m going for. I’ll say, “Let me hear a beat,” and I’ll see if I have anything that’s speaking to my heart on it.
Tell me about the roles of poetry and music in your life.
I grew up singing, but I also grew up writing. I became a part of a poetry group in New Orleans, and we used to go and compete with our poetry all over the world. We were a really dope team. We won a lot of competitions, and we won the biggest competition there was to win in poetry at the time. That’s when I like, “Okay, it’s time to stop competing. I want to focus more on music and poetry and combining them into one.” I wanted to do it in a different arena, with musicians and shows!
[Poetry] is my first love. And the first to love me back. She’s grown with me. Sometimes she don’t want to deal with me [laughs]. It’s a relationship. Sometimes you don’t wanna do what you have to do. If she taps me on the shoulder and she wants to go out on a date, I must be ready to support her. I gotta be ready to ignore everybody and go in on that poem. I really just see it as something that loves me back; it’s safe. You could write about anything, and the page will never judge your deep secrets if you don’t show it to nobody. And I love that.
At one time I was thinking I wanted to be a singer full time. I said, “Well, I don’t have any songs. But aren’t songs just words? Aren’t poems just words without melody?” I said, “If that’s the case, I have a million songs.” So I began to start making my poems into my songs.
Where is the line between poetry and rap for you? Between poetry and other lyrics?
Well, I don’t feel like a rapper. I feel like a…flow-et. I’m a poet with flow. I’ll be standing there speaking and focused, and it’s just something that whispers to me when it’s time to get in more of a flow, and when it’s time to put it into a melody. And everybody that performs with me knows that—they’re like, “That’s Tank.” Almost like the way Lauryn Hill used to do it.
Right, and obviously the slam poetry world and hip-hop have such close ties! Who are some poets you’ve always gravitated to?
People like Hakeem Martin, a lot of poets from Def Poetry Jam like Black Thought and Amir Sulaiman. I also grew up on people like Nikki Giovanni.
You’re quoted in the press release as saying that you want poetry to be seen as cool again, and for it to get respect. I feel like a lot of the way poetry is taught in schools doesn’t make it feel as…
Relatable, it’s not relatable.
Right, it’s not taught in a way that actually speaks to somebody’s heart. My favorite poems are the ones that I can’t really articulate the reason it’s so impactful. It just is. Like Jill says on that first track, “A good poem can make you sit in your got damn car by your got damn self and be quiet.”
I felt that at slams so many times, just watching these poets up here just speak with so much conviction. One line could live with you forever.
I wish more people understood that feeling.
You really can’t nod your head to some poetry, and the way that I’ve connected music and poetry together, you can.
I remember watching your Tiny Desk Concert after you won the contest, just watching your face while you were performing “Rollercoasters” and thinking, “Wow. She is her words.”
I go to such a place every time I do it. People probably think I”m just being super emotional about a rollercoaster [laughs]. But I’m thinking about so many things. I think about my childhood; I think about seeing love for the first time. I think about things that bring me to a place of emotion that I can convey how special something was. I have to go there, right?
I think about how often people make fun of “slam poetry voice.” I feel like unless you’ve done it and been in that world, it’s hard to adequately explain what it feels like to be a conduit for words in that way.
It gives me so much strength. It gives me so much power. There’s so much power in vulnerability and truth, and tapping into that is very special because it’s that moment that you know that you’re not alone.
Also read our 2022 interview with Tank and the Bangas.
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