M ?USIC IS A product of its environment; it is experience transformed into sound. The materialization of this experience will vary according to the socioeconomic milieu and consciousness of the composer. As a Puerto Rican who was raised in New York City, I can remember clearly as a twelve-year-old hearing the chants of street gangs passing by our housing project at 1:00 A.M., and singing groups harmonizing on the street corner. I have been able to recall some of this sonic material and express it in the form of motives, harmonies, shouts, themes, and so forth, which have served as the basis of some of my compositions. The following works incorporate a specific element or elements of this urban streetlore, and, I would hope, comprise a kind of cultural anthropological study of urban street life which, by the way, was not my intention when composing these works. 124 E. 107th St. (1979) for six percussionists, narrator-actor, and electronic tape, is a music theater piece incorporating urban environmental sounds with a text mostly written in a black vernacular expression or street talk. I approach this street talk or verbal jazz more as a sound than a language, swinging with a continuously driving rhythmic flow and always managing to come out metered. There are certain inflections and cadences, meaningful and communicative, which express one of the most creative and musical uses of the English language. This verbal soul-jazz is a fundamental aspect of urban streetlore. Some examples of this spoken soul in the text (written by Pedro Pietri) of124 E. 107th St. are: bopping thru the hereafter, rapping to neon tombstones...; teaching the clouds how to nod. .. why do those bastards sleep so late knowing how strung out some of their best customers are, he mumbles thru the vomit falling out his trembling mouth; ... and he has nothing to do but hang out. ; ... until the pusher informs him that he is straight and it will be time to shoot up.. was hungry, you was unemployed.. .; . and for wanting to stay alive you go busted; ... everybody tuned into something else while you blew a lifetime...; etc. This sampling is enough evidence of the richness and flavor of street talk. To the soul-less ear most