A storyteller visiting Bermuda said being in the army as a young man didn’t exactly help his creativity, but gave him enough self-discipline to get through the lean years.

Oba William King of Chicago visited Bermuda this week to share his gift of storytelling with the community. He will be speaking today at The First Church of God at 10 a.m., to various schools, and at a special Community & Cultural Affairs and Friends of the Library event in Par-La-Ville Park at 5.30 p.m. The rain venue is at the Youth Library on Church Street. On Friday, he will also be speaking at the Fairmont Southampton Hotel at 8 p.m. at a special adults only event.

“I was born in 1956, at a time where if you were inclined into the arts, you were encouraged to go into the army to be a man,” Mr. King told the Royal Gazette. “I did the whole army thing. I did really good at it, but there was no room for creativity in the army. That is why you go — to get that whole actor bug out of your system.”

It didn’t get the acting bug out of Mr. King’s system but it did give him some discipline as an artist. He studied acting at the University of Santa Barbara, California, and eventually became an African Griot or traditional storyteller.

“I don’t know that I would have toughed it out through the lean years when no one knew who I was,” he said. “You go and audition for a play; you think you are good. You work for two months during the study process and the play runs and you finish that with a $200 cheque. There is nothing like living on the couch of your girlfriend’s mother’s house.”

Mr. King did eventually make it through the hard times, and is now a highly successful storyteller who runs a company called ‘Just Us Arts Education Entertainment’. He travels the United States and the world, telling stories with children and adults.

“They claim that in the world artists have to starve before they can be successful,” he said. “I don’t think that is true. I think if you apply your art, then your art will feed you.

“If you let the art guide you, then art will pay for itself. The things you need to survive will come.

“After awhile it will support you, and after awhile you will be able to support other people.”

He said in the beginning, a budding artist may need some other means of financial support, but eventually the art will take over.

Mr. King was born in Greenville, South Carolina, grew up in San Bernadino, California and now lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Some of his earliest memories of storytelling involve his grandmother in Texas.

“Every year we use to drive to her house in one of those station wagons with a back seat that looks in the opposite direction,” he said. “I saw everything that was happening out there. When we would get there I would tell my grandmother about the trip. I loved words and I loved talking.”

He said the sixties were a time of tremendous change in the United States, and his family would often use stories to impart lessons.

“Though I was seven or eight years old, and there were different things going on, I didn’t know that you couldn’t drink water from certain water fountains,” said Mr. King. “One day in Texas, we went walking, and I was thirsty. I was with my brothers and cousins. I saw water and I went to get it. The white people there got very angry. My older brother had to try to protect me. He tried to shoot a slingshot at the guy. We ran to my grandmother’s house. This man was screaming at my father to beat me, because what I had done was so wrong. My father said, ‘no one tells me when to beat my son’. That was when I learned about the racial divide and racism. I was supposed to drink from a waterhose which was on the ground.”

Mr. King said storytelling can also be a means of healing and reconciliation.

“I had a friend who was teaching at a community college in Beatrice, Nebraska, this really tiny town,” he said. “There were kids aged 20, 21 there who had never had any interaction with an African American. It wasn’t because they were racist but because there were no black people there. He arranged an event called ‘Breaking Chains, One Man’s Journey Towards Freedom’.

“Normally, there were thirty kids in the class, but when I went there only 12 showed up. In the next session we had more students than what he normally would have had. We were only going to do two sessions, but the chancellor of the college heard, and we put a big show on that afternoon using the stage. The whole college was able to come.”

He said stories can bring people together, or they can split people apart, as in the case of the Don Imus controversy.

Mr. King was bestowed the name ‘Oba’ by a river in Chicago. Feeling particularly nervous about a show one night, he went down by the waterside to relax. He heard the river saying ‘Oba, Oba’. He later talked it over with the audience and learned that it meant ‘bald headed king’ in Benin, West Africa. It seemed a perfect name for a man named William King who had been bald since the age of 19.

Mr. King feels a tremendous responsibility to use his stories and talent to get across positive messages to his audiences. He uses storytelling to talk about such diverse issue as AIDS, personal creativity, race issues and the often overlooked accomplishments of African Americans.

“It started as ‘Just Us’ because it was me and all my imaginary friends,” he said. “My imaginary friends were Paul Laurence Dunbar, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, among others. I grew up in a place where there were not a lot of African American folk in my schools.

“In my performances, I would do little showcases where the speeches of these historical figures would be a segue between characters. I want to offer stories that would increase self-esteem. Sometimes, my stories urge that the artist inside you should be given as much attention and respect as any other part of you. Artists in the classroom are the ones who push up the bar. They bring levity to the situation.”

His stories are accompanied by singing from Mateena Hough, 25 and dancing from Lakeesha Jackson, 21.

His stories are meant for all age groups, although some will be appreciated more deeply by teenagers or adults.

The Friends of the Library event this evening is free. The event at the Fairmont Southampton Hotel will be $50. He will be joined by Bermuda’s own storytellers Ruth Thomas and Chewstick. All proceeds will go to the Bermuda National Library. Tickets can be purchased at www.boxoffice.bm , at the Bermuda National Library or at the Music Box.

Let your art be your guide, says Oba