Dawn Counts knows what it feels like to be a kid again.

Standing behind the microphone, the law student compared a significant other to the joys of childhood.

"Your timber makes me sing," she said, and proceeded to sing a piece of Anita Baker's "You Bring Me Joy."

Counts' poetry was one of many acts performed during "Revolution Revisited," a jazz and poetry concert Friday night at the Business College Complex.

The concert, put on by the Wolverine Student Bar Association, brought an audience of about 300 students and Lansing-area residents.

Ed Garnes, the host of the show, said it was important to convey two different art forms to the audience.

"It's important to show diversity among blacks," the counseling graduate student said. "The title is a reference to the historical significance of black art."

While adjusting the microphone, MSU alumna Kamilah Hassan told the audience she felt a little nervous before she gave a five-minute history lesson about the struggles of women in the past.

"Man takes the credit, while women bear the pain; it's a damn shame," she said from her poem "Unveiling Eve." Hassan said she felt the theme of the poem matched that of the concert.

"It's evolution, it's change," she said. "It needed to be heard."

The event also included a performance by Professors of Jazz, a five-member group composed of MSU jazz professors.

"We're going to swing, so you all better swing with us," Professor Rodney Whitaker said to the audience.

Poet Sugar Johnson came from Brooklyn to share his East Coast style with the onlookers.

"You don't have to captivate the audience all the time, you can just speak your mind," Johnson said on his views of poetry. "If people feel it they feel it. If not, then not."

But when the group The Last Poets took the floor, the audience was captivated.

The Last Poets formed in 1968, at a time when the civil rights movement was in full swing. Their powerful spoken-word performances made them known as the "grandfathers of rap."

Don "Babatunde" Eaton started out the performance by beating an African drum. Then, Umar Bin Hassan and Abiodun Oyewole joined him and took the opportunity to speak out against the war in Iraq.

Belting out "America is a Terrorist" at the top of his lungs, Oyewole told a story of past misdeeds in America's history, and why history continues to repeat itself.

"You all are the next generation," Bin Hassan said after the show. "We try to make you aware and conscious of the situation we're in."

Lansing resident Sharon Peters, who saw The Last Poets more than 20 years ago while she was an undergraduate student at MSU, said the concert was unique in its mixture of jazz and poetry.

"It's a good mix of stuff from back in the day with those who are brand new and just getting to know it," she said.