“Why You Mad?” brings poetry from Tarriona “Tank” Ball‘s book The Thing About Falling into a full band performance with Dawn Richard joining Tank and the Bangas for this Poetry On A Porch instalment. Norman Spence II and Robert Kellner handle keys, Kenaniah Turner on bass, Deven Trusclair on drum machine. The band won the 2025 Grammy for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album for The Heart, The Mind, The Soul.

Poetry sits at the centre of Ball’s writing and performance practice. She grew up in a family of New Orleans pastors and found slam poetry in middle school, winning two National Poetry Slam championships by the time she finished high school. That foundation led her to open mics at Black Star Books & Caffe after graduation, where she started combining poetry with music and met Joshua Johnson and Norman Spence, who became the band’s drummer and keyboardist. Albert Allenback joined later on alto saxophone and flute, and by 2017 Tank and the Bangas had won NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest. That performance has since been watched 15 million times on YouTube.

Dawn Richard shares the same Louisiana roots. She comes from Creole background and worked inside commercial pop as a founding member of Danity Kane before turning to self-released solo albums. Her presence on this Poetry On A Porch episode connects two artists who have both built careers on refusing to be boxed in.

Ball’s book The Thing About Falling came directly out of her 2021 book tour, where she got “vulnerable AF” and realised she was finally ready to move on from her first love. The collection moves through heartbreak, rebound, and new love with the same directness she brings to her performances. Poetry On A Porch extends that approach by taking the written poems and turning them into band performances where guest artists join the conversation.

That performance-first mentality runs through Tank and the Bangas’ three-part album The Heart, The Mind, and The Soul as well. They built it with different producers for each section: James Poyser on The Heart, Iman Omari on The Mind, and Robert Glasper on The Soul. Each producer shaped how the band moves between poetry and music, with Glasper leading free-formed sessions that let ideas flow, Omari focusing on lo-fi dreamy loops, and Poyser grounding the first section in soul and jazz foundations.

Find The Thing About Falling HERE, and stream the Grammy-winning album The Heart, The Mind, The Soul HERE