Largest, the greatest,
The fastest, the hippest,
The all the way past which
There cannot be
When we say MAX, that's what
We mean, hip always
Clean. That's our word
For Artist, Djali, Nzuri Ngoma,
Señor Congero, Leader, Mwalimu,
Scientist of Sound, Sonic Designer,
Trappist Definer, Composer, Revolutionary
Democrat, Bird's Black Injun Engine, Brownie's Other Half,
Abbey's Djeli-ya-Graph
Who baked the Western industrial singing machine
Into temperatures of syncopated beyondness
Out Sharp Mean

 Roach was at one time married to jazz vocalist  Abbey Lincoln . In West Africa, a  Djeli  is a storytelling historian. Baraka combines that word with graph, indicating Roach serves as the percussive translator of Lincoln’s singing.