Tank Ball Poetry: A Fusion of Words and Music

Tarriona “Tank” Ball, leader of the New Orleans-based soul/funk/rock/jazz group Tank and the Bangas, started writing poetry before singing.

“I was interested in poetry when I was about 12 years old when I opened up my sister’s diary, which I had no business doing,” she says via Zoom from her New Orleans home. She joins jazz great Terence Blanchard at 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 17, at Reinberger Chamber Hall for a special event dubbed Courage and Poetry: An Afternoon with Tank Ball. “I was reading her diary, and it was mostly her poetry. It was so amazing. I would know it by heart before I knew anything else. I was inspired by her. She doesn’t know that. For a lot of people, their favorites are Nikki Giovanni and Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou and Shakespeare. My favorite was my big sister.”

Even at age 12, Ball didn’t take writing poetry lightly.

“My poems were serious,” she says. “It was serious stuff. I was a child talking about some serious stuff. I was always talking about adult topics. I don’t know why, but I was intrigued by that. I would read them for my older sister and they would be like, ‘Oh, Tank writing that. She is above her years.’”

Ball says it didn’t take long before she realized she could pair her poetry with music, and it would have more impact.

“I started asking for things, and they started coming to me,” she says. “I was like, ‘I want a guitar player. I wanted a bass player. I want a saxophonist. I want a band and I want an album. I started asking for all types of things. Before I knew it, I started asking for more.”

The transition from reading poetry to fronting a band went smoothly for Ball, and Tank and the Bangas put out their first album, Think Tank, in 2013. Ball says she relied on her backing band to help shape the music.

“I didn’t know anything about musical instruments, honestly,” she says. “I didn’t know that the bass held down the band. I just knew I wanted a guitar player. I wanted an acoustic, really pretty sound. My first guitar player taught me that I needed bass, and that it could all come together great. I had guys that respected my poetic voice. That has always been cool.”

New Orleans has the musical legacy, but many bands choose to work the local circuit rather than the national one.

“It’s hard to get out of here,” says Ball. “We are at the bottom of the map. You can make a living because there are so many bars and clubs. Sometimes, you just stay right here and make your living. From very early on, we knew we wanted to travel the world and see if it could take us other places.”

Even though it features soul and funk grooves and not just spoken word, 2024’s The Heart, The Mind, the Soul won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album.

“Oh my God, I was so happy when that happened,” says Ball. “I ran to the stage, literally. I was running to that stage. I felt like that was for me and for us. My first love was poetry. I don’t even think that music loved me back. I had to work at it. But poetry always loved me back. Music did not love me back initially. It felt so full circle.”

Ball says the band aimed to simply “have fun” while recording the forthcoming The Last Ballon.

“If COVID taught us anything, it’s that we are nothing without our fans,” she says. “We need them to thrive and carry on. Who wants to make music for the phone? We want to be there with you. We want to experience the live concerts. We want it to be an experience where we are all family. We are like family because we need each other.”

The album’s first single, “Move,” has a great groove.

“I really love the band Jungle and how their music feels,” says Ball when asked about the tune. “I wanted to make music like that too. It just feels good to me. I happen to be in a long-distance relationship, and I want my guy to move to New Orleans. When people hear it, they probably think it’s about what they should do with their body, and I’m okay with that too.”

The song features New Orleans-based singer-songwriter Lucky Daye.

“That took a while,” says Ball when asked about the collaboration. “I met him and the third time was like, ‘We cool.’ He was so busy. Even though we’re from the same city, I thought it would be easy to connect. Our producer Austin Brown, who is Rebbie Jackson’s son and Michael Jackson’s nephew, is an amazing producer. He’s Lucky’s friend, and he kept pushing for it. When I heard his verse on it, it was undeniable.”

We live during a time when the arts are under attack in this country. So does Ball feel a heightened sense of purpose?

“I always have,” she says. “It’s always been heightened for me. It’s interesting to me that I’m not making a big political poem. Dancing is raging against the machine as well and bringing people together from all different walks of life. It could be as easy as bringing people together under the same sun. That’s the era I’m in with The Last Balloon. Who knows what I’ll do next week. Everyone doesn’t have the same blowhorn. We have different ways that we express our rage against the machine. You gotta do something with your voice and your power.”

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