From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. This week we note the death of maya angelou, the influential author, actress and activist was 76. Shes best known for her autobiography i know why the caged bird sings. She was a master of words who spoke several languages. In africa she taught drama, she danced and marched for civil rights with malcolm x and Martin Luther king. When the latter was assassinated on her 40th birthday, she was devastated. But first and foremost, she was a poet. Over the years she was a frequent guest on pbs. Her first appearance on my program came in 1993, after she recited her poem on the pulse of the morning at president clintons first inauguration. A rock, a river, a tree host to species long since departed mark the mastodon the dinosaur who left dried tokens of their sojourn here on our planet floor any broad alarm of their hastening doom is lost in the gloom of dust ages but today the rock cries out to us clearly forcefully come you may stand upon my back and face your distant destiny but seek no haven in my shadow i will give you no hiding place down here i took the three symbols from music so that the rock and all that is said about the rock comes from a 19th century song, there is no hiding place down here, no theres no hiding place the rock, oh i went to to hide my face, rocked right out, no hiding place. Lay down myo burdens down by the riverside. Tree, from my grandmothers favorite poem. Grandmother when she died was over 60. I shall not be moved, i shall not be removed, just like a tree thats planted by the water. Oh, i shall not be removed. And once you had that . Then i could talk about all of us. I could talk about the Spanish Speaking and the jew and the muslim and the gay and the straight and the teachers and the privileged and homeless and the artist and all of us who make this fabulous country. I belong to church in winstonsalem, north carolina, Mount Zion Baptist church and i work in my church. And sing in the choir . No, i dont sing in the choir but i will work with the choir. Ill recite poems. Why dont you it wouldnt be fair. Whats your favorite hymn . My favorite is my grandmothers, not i shall not be moved. But she had a song she used to sing every sunday, every sunday the lord brought, mama would sit in the church pew and the preacher would say, and now we will be privileged with a song from sister hennison. And every sunday for 10 years my grandmother would say, me . And i used to sit in the childrens pew and say, just get up there. The kids would be like, your grandmother is doing again. But then shed sing it. Her song was i am a pilgrim of sorrow im lost in this wide world alone. Sing it, sister. And i cant sing, either. Yes, you can. There was also the dark side to Maya Angelous childhood. We went back with her to arkansas. The black part of stamps started there at the bridge. Where that fellow is fishing . There and behind us. At the railroad track. This was more or less no mans land here. Because if you were black, you never felt really safe when you went across the railroad track. You still had to go all this way, it was like an International Tarmac where anybody could get you. You were really in the black part of town when you crossed that Little Bridge and the pond. Then youre safe. Then if you didnt know everybody, at least everybody knew who you were, you know. And as a child, it was a chance to have some protection. I used to have to walk over here. Oh, gosh, i hated it. I had no protection at all over there. I didnt have an idea of protection. On this side. I had my grandmother on this side. I had the church. My uncle. And all my people were on this side. So i had an idea of protection. But there, i would be all alone. And i loathed it. Crossing those railroad tracks. Bill, i tell you, to show you how much things dont change, im not even going to cross it with you now. I dont really im not doing this for any reason other than i really do not want to go across there. I really dont. I understand. So what are you thinking right now . It was the challenges of her childhood, not only segregation and jim crow but also incidents of sexual abuse that would fuel her fires of creativity. After she named her abuser and he was killed by a mob she went mute for five years. This is a letter to myself when i was about 15. Dear me, myself then, i know that you know how to listen. When i was 8 years old, i became a mute. And was a mute until i was 13. And i started my whole body as an ear so i could go into a crowd and sit still and absorb all sound. That talent or ability has served me until today. Once you appreciate one of your blessings, one of your senses, the sense of hearing, then you begin to retake the sense of seeing and touching and tasting. You respect all the senses. Youve done everything ive tried a lot of things, failed at some things and succeeded at others. What i love about you, you have attacked it all with great passion. You look at all the books you have written, i can look at all the things you have done from journalist to poet to writer to actor to producer, all of those kinds of things which suggest this uncommon confidence in yourself and willingness to risk failure. Yes. Maybe its more dangerous to risk success. What do you mean. A lot of people dont really want success. Ive never understood that. Its true. You mean they dont want it and the best evidence of that is they fail. The best evidence of that is they dont try. Right. But to succeed means that i mean, youre in front of god and lots of responsible people and you have to either eat your words or stand by them. I think that i have agreed a long time ago, charlie rose, this may be my greatest blessing. I agreed a long time ago that i would die. Now, if i can admit that, then no matter what happens, i will do this thing. This is the biggest bugaboo of them all. I will do that. Then why couldnt i attempt something lesser . So i will try. Among her many accomplishments, maya angelou became a teacher, first poet in resident and then professor at wake forest university. Even as the she grew frail, she wonted to write. Her final post on twitter was this. Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of god. You think poetry is the voice. The music of the voice. I call back to dunbar, edgar allan poe, edna st. Vincent millay, its music for the human spirit. Its fine to see professors of literature looking at what is called concrete poetry, poetry which is to be seen and so how it is shaped is so important to the poetry. Thats fine. That may be true. But for me, until the human voice gives it elevation, it doesnt realy sing. It doesnt come into its own. It doesnt lift the highs heart and make the blood race. Of all the talents you have, what one resonates most with you . What one is the clearest expression of who you are and what you are . Im a writer. Thats what i am. Thats who i am. Thats how i described myself to myself and to god in prayer, when i say, lord, you remember me, maya angelou, 60 black female, i write. When i feel i have to describe myself to the lord, i always include what i do. I write. Thats what i do. I thank the lord im able to do other things, im grateful, but thats how i describe myself to myself. Is it in your judgment, a learned craft . Or is it everything is learned, charlie rose. I dont know how you learn it. But everything is learned. It is said that some people are born great, some achieve it and some have it thrust upon them. I think thats true of all the things you are. Youre born that thing, you earn it and some of it is thrust upon you. I believe that to be so. So your story was thrust upon you. It was mine to live. Mine to live. So it is now. It is mine to live. And i try to live it with so much flair. I surely do. Maya angelou, dead at 86. We continue our appreciation of maya an scre low with Gail Maya Angelou with gail king, a friend of maya angelou. Shes called poet and teacher one of a kind in all the best ways. Shes cohost of cbs this morning and much more than that. Im pleased to have her with me at this time, knowing the depth of her feelings about maya angelou. The first day, it came just as wed gotten off the air you get through that. But by the next day, after watching all the tv coverage and seeing your friends name with the birth date and the end date of her death was very and to see people going to her house and laying flowers, a house youve been to many times, it was very, very hard. Tell us the maya that you knew. I was thinking about this. Because what is it like to admire somebody as a kid and then you meet them and become friends so friendly that you see them in their pajamas, so friendly theyre in the kitchen cooking for you, asking you your feelings or how are you doing, whats going on in your life . I would sometimes just be in awe of her just watching her move around. But i know that she genuinely, genuinely cared for me. Im so grateful for that i met her through open remark she and oprah had been friend many, many years. I met her through oprah and for a long time i didnt call her anything, i was afraid. I was a grownup but i was afraid to Say Something to her. I would try to make eye contact before i would just start talking. One day, i said dr. Angelou and she said, why are you calling me that . I heard her chastise people who called her maya. I said, i though i was supposed to call you that and she said no youre not. I thought, she likes me, she likes me. Didnt she Say Something about shed look after you. My mom died in 1994. She called me one day, said, hello my darling girl no one had a voice like hers she said, i was just calling to see, how is your heart . You know, everyone else says, how are you, and you say fine. I said, maya, no one has ever asked me that before. She said, im sure not. She had a sense of confidence and a sense of self. Thats what resonates with so many people. I have gotten the most amazing emails, letters, phone calls who said, i never met maya but because of her i feel more confident about myself. I feel stronger about myself. I feel significant in my own body. And thats sort of what maya did for many, many people. She didnt care about your color, she didnt care about your class. So you would go to her house for thanksgiving, you know, charlie, thanksgiving dinner at Maya Angelous with 300 or so people, she was a very good cook, and there would be the housekeeper and driver sitting there with diplomats and politicians and famous people because in her, the human condition was the same. And thats something that i think you know, ill never, ever forget that. But she was also, she could be tough. She could be very tough. And demanding. Very tough, very demanding. We were sitting around this table if you said something she thought was inappropriate, even you, charlie rose, not that you would, but if it was a racist joke or a sexist joke, she would say, stop it, i will not have it. I have seen her at other peoples homes chastise people, you cant do this. At her house, she said, i dont want it in my curtains, i dont want it in my furniture, you must leave. Wed all silt there very quietly like, this is awkward. But she was very, very sure of herself. You know, she didnt like, as she said, complaining, i called her once, i was complaining, i didnt think it was complaining, i thought i was venting and seeking advice. Im mid story and she said, stop it. Stop it. I said, i havent finished telling you, you know what happened . She said it doesnt matter, youre whining. I said im not whining. She said youre whining its very unbecoming. It lets you know theres a victim in the neighborhood and you must stop it. You must say thank you. What am i saying thank you for . You can always say thank you. Id be like thank you. And id want to like shrink under the table. She was the only one that could make me feel like im 7. 7 but she said something very important to you not long ago. Yeah. Leather bound copies of her books with a lovely inscription they came a week before she died. They came to my office and they were she had written a note to me in them and i called her to say thank you, that was the last conversation i had with her. But i just thought, she said, i wanted you to have these. I dont think people said, oh she must have known. I dont think so, charlie. I talked to her son, i talked to people who had talked to maya, the day before she died, she was planning the party for the fourth of july. You know, shed been fragile for so long, we all thought it could happen any day, it could happen this week, next week a year from now two years from now, but when you think, youre 86 years old you die in your own home new york your own bed, peacefully, without pain, theres something very beautiful in that. There is indeed. Everybody has a favorite maya quote, now, everybody does. What are you hearing from her friends, people who know you and know the relationship you and oprah had and because you are such a visible person, i wanted to share wanted to share their emotion with you . Thats what people are say, someone said to me, i feel like i lost my mother, i feel like i lost my fwrore. I feel like and everyone says what i believe too. You know, that not to have that wisdom or hear that voice, you know, of course oprah and i talked, she was on a movie set this week and she said, im not looking at any of the coverage. I said, oh, man, you should see the coverage. She said, im not looking at it, i dont want to look at it. Because i dont want to think of maya as a news story. But for me, you know, im a news junkie, as are you, i couldnt get enough of it. I wanted to know what people said. You know, the impact she had on people really does live on. And in that way, there will always be a place for us. She had such a powerful personal story, what she had overcome, what she wrote about. Even going mute if you remember. Even that, think about this little girl who was raped at the age of 7. And she speaks of it, she tells her uncle and the man who did this ends up being killed, he was beaten to death and she feels that because of her voice, this man, you know, well known story, you know, because of her words this man lost his life. And to decide at 7, im not going to speak. And she didnt. She didnt speak for five years because she was so consumed with that. What little kid thinks like that . That shows you again, she was in a different gear than most people. She was very confident in her own skin. Very confident in her own skin. We say, you might not agree with her tactics sometimes of correcting people, but she was never wrong. She was never wrong in that respect. She could also be a bit of she was mischievous. I was going to say that. Very sexual. She said to me, you know, im juicy like a peach and she would hold her head like that. Im juicy like a peach. She was smitten with you, charlie rose. Thank you. What thank you for talking to me about what she meant. Im delighted to be here. Stay with us. In my youth before i was corrupted by the business of National Security i was a poet. You were a poet . And i loved writing and studying poetry. She was from earliest days as a student of poetry, one of my very favorites. And then as i grew up and had more opportunities and exposure, i got to meet her on a number of occasions. And she had such grace and warmth and dignity. She was extraordinarily affirming of everybody she touched. Nasir jones is here, hes known as nas. Hes been called a city poet in the tradition of whitman, hughes or ginsburg. His debut album introduced the world to the gritty street life of new york. He wrote he achieved status the album is now the subject of a documentary that opened at the tribeca Film Festival last month. Heres the trailer for the documentary. Along came my son. I felt like a king was born. Every rhyme was the best i ever heard in my life. Eight, nine, ten years old. Nobody rhyming like that back then. It was a new beginning of rap. It was like living a hustlers life through poetry. When i made it, i was trying to make a perfect album. I was trying to make you experience my life. I wanted you to look at hiphop differently. I wanted you to feel that hiphop is changing and becoming something more real. I gave you what the streets felt like, what it sounded like, tasted like, smelled like, all in that album and i tried to capture it like no one else could. Is your music poetry . I never liked that word. Why not . It sounds too refined. Not raw. Right. I consider my music more raw. Especially the first record. I was more raw. You said this was your effort at perfection. Yes. I tried to make it perfect. Because at that point, it was my first it was my entry into the rap game so the rap game was full of so many hard hitting groups and artists that if it was anything less than what i felt would be perfect, i would have failed. I would have never got intoon the rap game. Today its a lot easier, i think, to get into the rap game but back then, in 1994, it was a lot harder. Did you change the game . Yes. Yes, i did. And that was my point. It was my point to. I was a new voice. Being a new voice, automatically, it was beyond my control, it was like, im a new voice, a new way to talk about things and it changed things. How different is hiphop today . Definitely more global. Its everywhere. Its more in the mainstream. Its been i dont want to say this word but its been accepted as the music form it is. Its been accepted, for sure. Thats the difference. Even if its protest, its been accepted. Absolutely. Like its cool. Used to be a lot scarier. Yeah. How does that happen, do you think . Well, people dont get scared anymore. They realize that this nightmarish music is not going to influence your kids to throw it all away. Its ok. Where do you see yourself in this evolution . Well, i see myself as just just a musician. I feel like im growing. I evolved. Im an evolving artist. I evolved with the times, i feel like. You have to. You know. Would you name an artist you havent influenced . Thats bragadocious. Ive influenced a few of them and ive been influenced by a lot of artists as well. Like whom . Slick rick. Ice cube. Ll coolj. Big daddy kain. A tribe called quest. Michael jackson. Michael jackson . Frank sinatra. You know. Its a wide list. Of artists. From sinatra you got what . I like when he said, i did it my way. I didnt know Frank Sinatras name, i heard his name when i was a kid but this song, my way stood out to me. As a kid. These are ive been doing this for a few years, ive met a lot of artists, this is jayz making the case that hiphop is poetry, this was in 2004. The hiphop poetry and the poets in hiphop are some of the best ever. The double entendres, the stories being told all the while rhyming and staying on beat and expressing emotions and having people connect to those emotions, oh, man thats you know its some of the best music ever. Ever. Ever. You know, not to knock any other industry, like the things that hiphop artists sing about, those are real things. Those are things people connect to. Thats why the hiphop artists have movements, people follow them be