It’s that time again! Brave New Voices, the international teen poetry slam, was where all of us at iLL-Lit started off. And although it wasn’t the big HBO-sponsored behemoth that it is today, it provided the stage for our teen-selves to be inspired enough to pursue this for life. This year it hits LA, and HBO’s filming a second season.
Above is a piece from Mahaliyah, one of my favorite writers from Youth Speaks – the founding organization of BNV and the training grounds where we developed as artists and educators. Always great to see these rare moments when the young and truly talented are given some shine.
Quite necessary to give it up to Ursula Rucker, one of the premiere spoken word artists in the record industry. I was first introduced to her through the outro tracks to the Roots’ earlier albums, which all featured poems by her. This week she brings us some brand new sounds, continuing the tradition of blending spoken word with soul.
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Yoooo this is so fresh I had to hijack this week’s Wednesday Word from Dahlak so I could post it!!!!!!! In B Flat 2.0 is a music and spoken word project created by virtual strangers and their independently YouTube’d musical performances. The instruments used range from classical violin to a Nintendo DS, and it’s topped off by a sweeeeeeet spoken word piece entitled “Information” by Daniel Donahoo (the video 3 rows down, on the far left column).
This is such a creative concept…20 videos hosted on a single page, and the listener/viewer is given the space to interact with it by choosing which videos to play, and when to play them. As many continue to search for that perfect sound to accompany the fickle and inconsistent cadences of spoken word, who would’ve thought that random and desynchronized loops would be the key? And the key is B. Bing!
It brings us great sorrow that our fantastic spoken-wordie-homie Aja-Monet will be heading to Chicago right when we move into her NYC hometown, but if she keeps dropping these gems it might be some reconciliation. Ms. Monet hops on this track for Charles Hamilton‘s “Rosado,” the next leak from his debut LP that drops this June.
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Although we’re only slightly incredibly bitter that Barry didn’t invite us over for the first ever night of spoken word at the White House on May 12, it’s understandable that us having poems like “I Know Some of These Negroes is Hoping Obama Don’t Get Elected ” might not be the most patriot-worthy material. Our homie and fellow spokenwordian Mayda del Valle represented quite extravagantly though!
Check out her performance above, and some other footage after the jump. We’ll post the whole night in its entirety as soon as it’s up, keep it locked!
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