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THE SHOW

A Conversation Between Generations

Step into an intimate theatrical experience where father and son bring poetry, music, storytelling, and visual art to bridge generations. Blending the soul of jazz with the rhythm of hip hop, Said By The Father and Son explores Black fatherhood, family, healing, legacy, and the words we too often leave unsaid.

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The Story

Said By The Father and Son begins inside the Walker family living room, a place where poetry, music, African art, faith, and conversation shaped the language between a father and son. Long before it became a stage production, the show was being formed through bedtime stories, poems, life lessons, questions, disagreements, prayers, and the quiet moments where love was taught without always being explained.

This is not a perfect portrait of family. It is an honest one. A living conversation about Black fatherhood, legacy, healing, love, accountability, and the words too many families never get the chance to say out loud.

THE LIVING ROOM STAGE

At the center of Said By The Father and Son is the Walker family living room, not as a symbol, but as a real place of memory, art, conversation, and inheritance.

The African artwork seen on stage comes from Rob and Leon Walker’s own family collection. Many of these pieces once lived inside the family-owned JasLeRober Gallery, a cultural landmark in Tacoma, Washington, and one of the largest African art galleries on the West Coast.

In the show, these objects are not decoration. They are witnesses. They carry the memory of a family, a city, a culture, and a father’s lifelong commitment to preserving Black identity, beauty, and history. As the performance unfolds, the stage becomes more than a set. It becomes a living archive.

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HIP HOP MEETS JAZZ

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The music is more than accompaniment. It is the bridge between generations.

Jazz carries memory, soul, improvisation, and the wisdom of those who came before. Hip Hop carries rhythm, urgency, testimony, and the voice of a son trying to understand what he has inherited.
 

Together, Leon’s poetry and Rob’s music move in call-and-response, creating the emotional language of the show.

A WALK THROUGH 
FATHERHOOD

Said By The Father and Son walks through fatherhood as something lived, questioned, inherited, and learned.


Leon and Rob explore how wisdom is taught, how love is received, how silence shapes a family, and how healing begins when fathers and sons finally have room to speak.
 

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AUDIENCE RESPONSE

Maegan Mathews
Executive Director, Washington State Office of Equity
Christina Abby
Poet Laureate, Black Collective; Board Member, Tacoma Symphony
“This event was powerful. I appreciated the knowledge, the love, the laughs, the moments for reflection, the support, and the challenge to do better and commit to a future for all… We can respect our ancestors and carry forward the tools and lessons learned, but we don’t have to make a difference using the same methods.”
“The performance, accompanied by soul-stirring music and staging set the tone and temper… A genuine, wholesome and instructive conversation that intentionally captured the emotions and masterfully conveyed a raw and celebration of a bond between father and son. Authentic emanation of love, light & legacy!”
“Blending live hip hop, soul and gospel music and spoken poetry, the production explores fatherhood, the Black experience and universal themes of human familial relationships.”
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The News Tribune
 
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