Tag Archives: Sorrow

Ndivhuho Aluwani Mabonyane, popularly known as Dzomolavenda, is an award winning traditional praise poet from Limpopo, South Africa. His talent and passion were evident from a very young age; in grade three he could effortlessly recite poems like Ramaremisa written by legendary Z Matsila.

In 2006 he started penning his own poems including Tshivhoni and Zwa lino shango. After graduating from high school in 2010 he trained and mentored people in poetry and stage drama and still continues to do so now.

His first poetry album titled Vhalemba includes hits like Shandukani, and Luvha la Africa. In 2013 he won an award for best poetry song/album at the prestigious Tshivenda Music Awards.

Matshedisho Aletta Motimele

September 19, 2014

Matshedisho Aletta Motimele has been writing poetry for over two decades. She is the author of Peu tsa lerato and Re thankgetse. This talented actor and playwright has also written for radio and television productions.

Titilope

August 28, 2014

Nigeria No Comments

When Titilope first stepped to the microphone in 2007 at a local open mic, to gracing stages from Lagos to Cape Town, New York to California, Edmonton to Toronto and places in between, her goal has been to remind people that the ties that bind us transcend all of the borders we have created. She will tell you that no poem is brand new. In the telling and re-telling we are reminded that someone has walked this path before.

Titilope is a Nigerian born civil engineer, author and spoken word poet and the winner of the 2011 Canadian Authors’ Association Emerging Author Award for her first collection of poems, Down To Earth. In 2013 Titilope released her first spoken word album Mother Tongue and her second collection of poetry, Abscess, in 2014 with Geko Publishing in South Africa.

She was a resident artist at the 2011 Yemoya Artist Residency under the mentorship of acclaimed Jamaican-Canadian Dub poet and educator, D’bi Young. She was the recipient of the 2013 RISE award for achievement in the arts and the 2014 National Black Coalition of Canada Fil Fraser Award.

She has featured on stages across Canada and internationally, performing with Sonia Sanchez, Jayne Cortez, Yusef Komunyakaa, Obiora Odechukwu, Bassey Ikpi, Twin Poets and Offiong Bassey, at the 2011 Achebe Colloquium on Africa at Brown University. In 2013, Titilope was selected from over 200 writers to meet legendary poet and author, Dr. Maya Angelou.

She is the creator of Rouge Poetry, a weekly open mic that has feature local and international poets and musicians for over 5 years. She is the founding member of the Breath In Poetry Collective, home of the 2011 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (CFSW) championship winning Edmonton Slam Team. Titilope also adds acting to her list of accomplishments, starring as Eki in the Ndani TV hit series, Gidi Up that will air across Africa in 2014.

Even with the soil of continents beneath her feet, the stories that are surer with each passing year, she has not forgotten where it all began. She will tell you it is simple; when your heart is cracked open and a multitude of words begin to leak from your chest, before you stain everything you dare to touch, put it in a poem.

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Bilkis Moola

August 26, 2014

Bilkis Moola is an Educator who works as a Head of Department in Languages at a school in Vukuzakhe, a township located in Volksrust, Mpumalanga province, South Africa. Her first anthology of poetry Wounds & Wings evolved as an introspective quest for recovery from her personal narrative of an abusive relationship. Bilkis presently divides her time between professional responsibilities and post-graduate studies in Education.

Batsirai E Chigama

August 26, 2014

Zimbabwe No Comments

In 2006 when Batsirai started seriously performing her poetry she says there were only three women doing poetry readings at the time including herself. She was felt challenged to add her voice in the poetry circles therefore ventured into the slam community at the Book Cafe in Harare. She is passionate about lending her voice to the women whose voices have been silenced the world over.

Batsirai has performed at several festivals in the region including Harare International Festival of the Arts(HIFA), Intwasa Arts Festival, Thubalethu, Nguva Yedu Youth Festival, Arts Alive(SA), Sadc Poetry Festival(Botswana), Poetry Africa Tour, Tambo Tambulani Art Camp & Festival, Pemba, Mozambique, Shoko Spoken Word & Hip-Hop Festival and recently performed at the Hivos Poetry Cafe, Blantyre Arts Festival, Malawi.

In August 2010, Batsirai was featured in four anthologies published by Mensa Press in the USA: Whispers in the Whirlwind, War against War, Defiled Sacredness & Visions on Motherland. She is also featured in State of the Nation published by Conversation Paper-press in England. Several of her short stories have been published online and an extract from one of her short stories was published in “Writings from Africa” a publication facilitated by the British Council through the Crossing Borders Writers’ Project.

Batsirai also writes short stories and contributes to Zimbojam, the most popular arts website in Zimbabwe.

Barbra Breeze Anderson

August 25, 2014

Zimbabwe No Comments

Barbra Breeze Anderson is a performance poet, writer and designer. She started the art of performing in the year 2007 at the ‘Power In The Voice Competition’, a British Council sponsored event where she performed a short prose piece.

Barbra breeze the performance poet was born a year and seven months ago at the Book Cafe and since then has been exposed to frequent poetry slams such as the House of Hunger poetry slam at the Book Café. She has performed at Open Mic events and other poetry events at the Book Café/ Mannenberg such as Sistaz Open Mic and Mashoko events.

Barbra also took her poetry outside of the two venues to places such as Alliance France’s Chimoto poetry night and an Acoustic Night at the Symphony. She has performed at the Buddyz Annual Festival of the Arts (BAFA) 2009 at Harare Gardens and the Sixteen Days of Activism concert 2010. Barbra performed in Bulawayo in 2010, she has appeared on television and radio –Youth.com, Spot Fm’s various spoken word outlets and has featured in Newspaper articles from Newsday, the Daily News, Herald, the online regional news site Shout Africa and the online outlet Zimbo Jam. The articles have been profiles of her and her current projects.

Early this year she performed at a community based event ‘Step Up’ 2011 at the Aquatic Sports club in Chitungwiza and at the monthly ongoing Mashoko event at the Mannenberg. She performed at the U.S Embassy Black History Event 2011 at the Ambassadors House in early February. Barbra is now working on various projects, one that she has put into effect is a monthly Poetry night event called ‘Poetry And’ launched in April 2011 where poetry is fused with different genres of art. She is working with some of the best of Zimbabwe’s spoken word artists and she intends to make it a success.

Barbra has participated at the first edition of Shoko Spoken Word and Hip Hop Festival 2011 and she has performed her poetry at a Pamberi trust project-a Concert for Non Violence 2011, in Highfield, in September this year and at the Acoustic Night, November 2011 edition.

For the year 2012, she opened it as part of the poets of the spoken word section at Harare International Festival of the Arts (Hifa), 1-6 May edition, where she hosted and performed at the Hivos Poetry Café.

Mpho Ya Badimo

South African- born artist Mpho ya Badimo, which translates into Gift of/for the Gods, hails from South Africa’s North West Province’s capital, Mafikeng.

She expresses her art through an unconventional style of delivery which fuses her native tongue SeTswana, colloquialisms, music and the use of movements to interpret words. Through her use of localised expression, she challenges the audience to become actively involved in piecing together the meaning of the poetry as they would a puzzle – despite the absence of commonality in language.

She co-founded the 5th Grove Poetry Movement while studying towards her degree. She is a creative member, performer and at times program director of performance art foundations such as Lefoko Naughty West Hip Hop Movement and Xpressions under Lyv Records. These affiliations saw her perform for Mutabaruka and Haile Garima on their 2003 Sankofa Promotional Tour. She co-wrote the play Blood Love which was staged at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (2007).
She is the creator and sole designer of Black Lezoti jewellery, bags and wall art.

Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye

Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye is one of the most prolific women writers, not only in Kenya, but also in Africa. She has distinguished herself as a writer of novels, poetry, and children’s stories. She was born in Southampton, England, in 1928 and came to Kenya as a missionary bookseller in 1954. She married D.G.W. Macgoye in 1960 and subsequently integrated into her husband’s extended family and the Luo community. This feature is well manifested in her literary works which have been acknowledged all over the world. Coming to Birth won the Sinclair Prize for fiction in 1986, while Homing In won second place in the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 1985.

Mahogany L. Browne

United States No Comments

The Cave Canem Fellow is the author of several books including Swag & Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out On-line, recommended by Small Press Distribution & listed as About.com Best Poetry Books of 2010.

She has released five LPs including the live album Sheroshima. As co-founder of the Off Broadway poetry production, Jam On It, and co-producer of NYC’s 1st Performance Poetry Festival: SoundBites Poetry Festival, Mahogany bridges the gap between lyrical poets and literary emcee.Browne has toured Germany, Amsterdam, England, Canada and recently Australia as 1/3 of the cultural arts exchange project Global Poetics.

Her journalism work has been published in magazines Uptown, KING, XXL, The Source, Canada’s The Word and UK’s MOBO. Her poetry has been published in literary journals Pluck, Literary Bohemian, Bestiary Brown Girl Love and Up The Staircase. She is an Urban Word NYC mentor, as seen on HBO’s Brave New Voices and facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country.

She is the publisher of Penmanship Books, a small press for performance artists and owns PoetCD.Com, an on-line marketing and distribution company for poets. Mahogany is currently host and curator of the Friday Night Slam at the famous Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Mwila Mambwe

DRC No Comments

Mwila Mambwe sought refuge in South Africa, after fleeing the war-ravaged country of his birth. Originally from Lubumbashi, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, his personal journey of strife and overcoming adversity finds expression in his poetry, most notably in the compilation Coming from the Struggle.

Native Son

Canada No Comments

Marvin Trimm aka (Native Son) is a writer, poet, spoken word artist, motivational speaker and musician. He has been engaged in the world of literary and performance art for 20 years. It is this passion for the arts that has led him to be showcased globally in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Caribbean.

A native of the small island of Bermuda, it was there that he honed and developed his craft his craft. In the late 80’s he was able to write, produce and direct his 1st one man show entitled “Life Signs on Planet Earth” a collection of monologues depicting real life characters in social situations.

Today, he continues in the capacity as a writer of performance poetry/spoken word, which he performs at various venues such as spoken word series, poetry slams, music festivals, community events, conferences, universities and prisons. Marvin describes his poetic literary speech as spontaneously truthful. A self pro-claimed “Empowerment Poet”, he often writes about self development, self awareness and self improvement. Marvin is a charismatic storyteller that combines history , social, political issues to enlighten and bring new perspectives about the world we live in.

Njeri Wangare

Njeri Wangare is a multi talented Kenyan poet and performer, IT specialist and arts blogger whose collection of poetry was recently published under the title Mines & Mind Fields; My Spoken Words. The 114 paged book contains over 40 poems that explore themes on Urban Blues, Love, Identity, Traditions, Cultural changes, Exploitation and Politics among others. Though most of the poems are in English, there are a few in Kiswahili, and Sheng

“She is one of the most respected female poets in Nairobi today”, The Sunday Nation writer Joseph Ngunjiri says of Njeri, “Njeri Wangari has a powerful voice, and she knows how to put it to good use. Whenever she takes to the podium to recite a poem, she has her enthusiastic audience applauding all the way.”

Njeri’s love for the arts began at an early age through her appreciation of African culture. This, she found to be well expressed in many of the books that she started reading while still young and they have shaped the person she has now become.

The year 2004 is when she penned down her first poem and 3 years later she made her first attempt in front of an audience to start performing her poems. She has now among some of the most talented Kenyan poets.
She has been running her blog, www.kenyanpoet.com since 2005,a project that she initially started in order to publishing her poetry online. It has since grown to incorporate other forms of art as well as host other poets. She has contributed immensely to the promotion of Kenyan Poetry not only on stage but also through the internet through her reviews on art performances and by encouraging up and coming poets to start blogs and eventually share their work through performance. She is currently part of the Global Voices Online-An online portal for citizen journalists, as a writer on African Arts.

Njeri has come to be known as the voice of reason and change in the Kenyan poetry circles due to the content and theme of her poems which range from culture, religion, human rights, technology and everyday challenges in the Kenyan society.

She performs regularly at various poetry spots in Kenya’s capital city Nairobi as well as in institutions and companies where she is invited from time to time.

Njeri is currently working on her 2nd poetry collection.

Ngwatilo Mawiyoo

Drawing from her musical background and her work as an actress, Ngwatilo Mawiyoo is acclaimed as “a priest of the art of performed poetry.” She has performed in venues in East Africa, Europe and North America, recently performing at the 2009 13th Stockholm Poetry Festival.

An undisputed young master of the written word, Ngwatilo’s first collection of poems Blue Mothertongue (2010) is “crafted with beautiful pace and intelligence,” “a worthy testament of her times.”

Her poems may also be found in literary journals around the world including Kwani? published by The Kwani Trust and The Literary Review published by Farleigh & Dickinson University.”

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Ndukwe Onuoha

Nigeria No Comments

Ndukwe Onuoha resides in Lagos Nigeria, where he is a copywriter by day and poet by design. He draws his inspiration from the many human stories that play themselves out every day, providing a unique insight into the animal called man.

He is married to a lovely blogger, who also has the rather arduous task of keeping him within the agreeable bounds of reality and sanity

Napo Masheane

Embodying the energy of a young, urban South African generation, acclaimed proponent of spoken-word poetry, Napo Masheane is a fresh and innovative voice in this genre. Born in Soweto and raised in Qwaqwa, Masheane who holds a Marketing Management and Speech and Drama Diploma, is a writer, director, producer, poet and an acclaimed performer on both international and national stages.

She is a founding member of Feela Sista! Spoken Word Collective. She is also the co-director of Colour of the Diaspora, an international collective of black women from the United States and South Africa. Masheane was a nominee of the 2005 Daimler Chrysler South African Poetry Award and has studied at or worked in: the Market Theatre, the Windybrow Theatre, the Grahamstown National Arts Festival, the University of Johannesburg, the Civic Theatre (Actors Centre), the SABC, Fuba School of Dramatic Arts, the University of California, Jungel Theater (Germany), Soweto Youth Drama Society, Farnebo College (Sweden), and The Lion King (New York City).

She has performed at Maitisong Theatre in Botswana and the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA). Masheane is currently the Managing Director of her own production company Village Gossip Productions through which she self-published her poetry and essay anthology Caves Speak In Metaphors. Her provocative and humorous one woman show My Bum Is Genetic Deal with It was received to wide acclaim.

She has performed and shared stage with, amongst others, Don Mattera, Lebo Mashile, Kgafela Magogodi, Jessica Care Moore, Toni Blackman and Linton Kwesi Johnson.

Khadijah Ibrahim

United Kingdom No Comments

Khadijah Ibrahiim is of Jamaican parentage, born in the city of Leeds, England. Educated at the University of Leeds; she has a MA in Theatre Studies. She is the Artistic Director of Leeds Young Authors and the Producer of Leeds Youth poetry Slam festival. Peepal Tree press published her poetry collection Rootz Runnin in 2008 that same year she toured the USA with the Fwords Creative Freedom writers. As a delegate for the Art Council England (Yorkshire) she attended Calabash International Literature Festival in Jamaica. She became one of the first international writers to attend the El Gouna Writers Residency in Egypt, 2010.

She was a member the advisory group that organized some of the events, which marked the visit of Dr Nelson Mandela to the City of Leeds. Hailed as one of Yorkshire’s ‘most prolific’ poets by BBC Radio, she continues to make various stage appearances across Britain, the USA, the Caribbean and Africa. Peepal Tree Press will publish her latest collection of poems later this year

Karyl Huggees

Canada No Comments

good little children are seen and not heard; so HUGGEES spent early performing years more focused on looking pretty and less on speaking up. with a background in folk dance and steelpan, there were many opportunities to glitter across various stages in north america. HUGGEES left a chorus of primary schoolmates in trinidad and tobago to perform with a family band throughout canada and then later spent a year with a touring performing arts company based in seattle. during that transient time HUGGEES soon looked to thoughts for companionship. after winning a few speech art competitions, a personal relationship with poetry began; organizing spoken word events and performing spoken word quickly followed. HUGGEES now cohosts on community radio in both spoken word and caribbean music programming.
this for HUGGEES is the return from a much needed break from the spotlight. while working with under-served families, HUGGEES uses art as a therapeutic recreation tool. the motivation to engage audiences once more, stems from the continual exposure to communal secrets and the commitment to be more open in order to continue needed conversations around healing. there is power in performance.
HUGGEES is determined to be a carton voice, playwright, dohl player and other artistic ventures as breath allows.

Kwame Dawes

Ghana No Comments

Ghanaian-born Jamaican poet, Kwame Dawes is the award-winning author of sixteen books of poetry (most recently, Wheels, 2011) and numerous books of fiction, non-fiction, criticism and drama. He is the Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner, and a Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of Nebraska. Kwame Dawes also teaches in the Pacific MFA Writing program.

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Kennet B

Odongo Kennedy Leakey, known in the entertainment industry as Kennet B, started writing spoken word poetry 14 years ago. He began performing actively in early 2009 after winning the Slam Africa Poetry Championship founded by Imani Womera of Imani Inc. Prior to this, he had recorded his first spoken word poetry single Reality Absurdity, the video for which is forthcoming. Driven by the global concern about HIV and AIDS, his lyrics are majorly pegged on the social issues that are responsible for the spread of the virus.

He has four albums on the table; Coming of Age, a seven track pure spoken word poetry album , Success a 15 track musical-poetry album, Cheka na Kennet, and Refugee.

Currently Kennet is working on a short stories compilation The Sheng Anthology vol 1. This is a collection of conflict-laden social narratives aimed at impacting the repeated emphatic distress felt when a favorite character is seen in imminent danger. This often enhances the enjoyment of the stories and one sees the resolution of the threat (HIV&AIDS) as the narratives unfold.

Lwanda

Lwanda Sindaphi is an actor, playwright, theatre director and Xhosa poet. He is a graduate of New Africa Theatre Academy and Magnet Theatre. In 2011, he won the Cape Town Drama for Life Lover + Another Poetry Slam and competed in the national finals in Johannesburg. In 2013, he won the most promising director award at the Zabalazaa Theatre Festival at the Baxter Theatre Centre and is a co-founder of Lingua Franca Spoken Word Movement.

Linda Gabriel

Zimbabwe No Comments

Linda Gabriel, born in 1985, is one of the crop of exciting female performance poets to emerge out of Zimbabwe. Bilingual, her linguistic versatility is forged into brilliant poems written in either English or Shona, depending on which language effectively expresses what issue. She started performing poetry in high school and has since participated in major literary events in Zimbabwe, the rest of southern Africa and Europe.

Solo Performances

* Cup O Thought, Durban- South Africa, September 2012
* Sanna Africa Festival, Johannesburg ñSouth Africa, May 2012
* Cheukwa fashion show, Harare ñ Zim, May 2012
* Bluntfyre Spoken Word Session, Blantyre – Malawi, Feb 2012
* Blantyre Arts Festival, Blantyre- Malawi, Oct 2011
* Kinshasa Platform of Performing Arts, Kinshasa- DRC, July 2011
* Lilongwe International Arts Festival, Lilongwe ñ Malawi, May 2011
* Super Woman Fest, Lilongwe-Malawi, March 2011
* My World Images Festival, Denmark, September 2010
* BAS ROOTS live performance project, Johannesburg -South Africa, 2010
* Sistaz Open Mic Joburg, Johannesburg – South Africa, 2010
* Dennis Brutus Memorial concert, Johannesburg -South Africa, 2010
* House of Hunger Poetry Slam Joburg, Johannesburg – South Africa, 2009-current
* Arts Alive, Johannesburg -South Africa, 2007, 2009, 2011
* Jozi Spoken Word Festival, Johannesburg – South Africa, 2008, 2009
* Harare International Festival of Arts, Harare – Zimbabwe, 2007,2009,2011,2012
* House of Hunger Jozi , Johannesburg ñ South Africa, 2009 ñ current
* Thuba Lethu/Our Time Youth festival, Harare -Zimbabwe, 2009
* Make Some Noise gigs, Johannesburg – South Africa, 2008
* Freedom for media in Zimbabwe Concert, Graham’s Town -South Africa, 2007
* British Council’s Power in the Voice, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Lusaka, Zambia, 2007
* House of Hunger Poetry Slam Zimbabwe, 2005 ñ Current

Collaborated With

* Myesha Jenkins, Natalia Molebatsi, Lebo Mashile, Khanyi Magubane, Khosi Xaba and Phillippa Yaa De Villers in a theatrical poetry show – Body of Words, South Africa, 2010
* Edmond Nhamoinesu – Zimbabwean Visual Artist, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2010
* Tammy Gore – Zimbabwean Pianist, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2010
* Stanley Masona – Zimbabwean Guitarist, Harare, Zimbabwe, 2009
* Christopher Mlalazi, Zimbabwean Writer and Poet, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, 2007
* Papa Zai – Zambian Reggea Artist, Lusaka, Zambia, 2007
* Ticha Muzavazi, Zimbabwea poet and Mbira player, Harare, Zimbabwe, 2007
* Takunda Mafika, Zimbabwean Vocalist and Mbira Player, Harare, Zimbabwe 2007
* Akiko Nakamura, Japanese Pianist and Mbira Player, Harare, Zimbabwe, 2007
* Morgen Gomwe – Zimbabwean Pianist, Harare , 2007 – 2012
* Upmost – Zimbabwean Poet, Harare, 2007
* Finuala Dowling – South African Poet, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2007
* Samantha R Thornhill – US based poet, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2007
* Tawanda Chamisa – Zimbabwean Hip Hop artist, Harare, 2007
* Stanley O Kenani – Malawian poet at HIFA, Harare, 2007

Shared Stage With

* Dudu Manhenga – Zimbabwean Afro Jazz Diva
* Chiwoniso Maraire – Zimbabwean Chimurenga Soul Diva
* Cde Fatso – Zimbabwean Poet
* Outspoken – Zimbabwean Poet/Hip hop artist
* Ethel Kabwato – Zimbabwean Poet/Writter
* Batsirai Chigama – Zimbabwean Poet/Writter
* Victor Mavedzenge – Zimbabwean Poet/Writter/Comedian/fine artist
* Blessing Musariri – Zimbabwean Poet/Writter
* Chirikure Chirikure – Zimbabwean Poet/Writter
* Albert Nyathi – Zimbabwean Poet/Musician
* Mzwake Mbuli – South African Poet
* Gcina Mhlope – South African Story teller
* Napo Masheane – South African Poet
* Ringo Madlingozi – South African Musician
* Phillippa Yaa De Villers – South African
* Poet/Writter
* Flo – South African Poet
* Lebo Mashile – South African Poet
* Natalia Molebatsi – South African Poet/Writer
* Khanyi Magubane – South African Poet
* Khosi Xaba – South African Poet
* Khethi – South African Poet/Musician
* Finuala Dowling – South African Poet
* Damon Berry – South African Poet
* The Lazarusman – South African Poet
* Mutabaruka – Jamaican Poet
* Samantha Thornhill – Trinidad/US Poet
* Zeena Edwards – UK Poet
* Antonio Lyons- US Poet/Musician/Dancer
* Myesha Jenkins – US Poet
* Charlie Dark – UK Poet
* Papa Zai – Zambian Poet/Musician
* Stanley O Kenani – Malawian Poet/Writter

Lolani Kalu

Lolani Kalu is a veteran Kenyan journalists, multi-linguist, musician, actor and comedian and Swahili poet. As a Journalist he has had a rare opportunity of interacting with Kenya’s diverse and rich arts and culture.

Lolani is the founder of Safari47.org, which was established as a way to identify, nurture and develop raw talent identified in 47 counties of Kenya.

Lloyd Akin Palmer

Jamaica No Comments

“avenging spirit of the ancestors”

A humble son of the garden parish of St. Ann, Lloyd Palmer born of hardworking rural folks. A mother who is a social worker and an industrious father who tills the soil profusely. Akin grew up in southern Trelawny attending the William knibb memorial high where he was involved in school and community cultural activities.
Such an experience has helped to groom and mold Akin into pursuing the arts as his chosen profession as a poet and a musician. Akin sees poetry as a holistic therapy to spiritually likewise socially uplift humanity. The poet/musician’s role is to express the thoughts, emotion, plight and concerns of the masses. Majority of whom are grassroots people facing inequality and needs a voice to utter for justice, truths and rights.
In 2005 he was the 2nd Runner Up in the 7th Annual Writers’ Award, while in 2007 he was 1st Runner Up in the 9th Annual Writers’ Award. He debuted with his album Tuff Tuff Triangle Urban Journey in 2005 as well as performed in Jus’ Poets, a series of poetry shows which was organized with other poets such as Elaine Thomas-Gifford, Bill Blast and I-Sense in 1994.
Currently working to publish his debut book of poetry SANKOFA. Also preparing for the release of his bands’ “The Uprising Roots Band” debut album SKYFIYA.

Linda Kaoma

Linda Kaoma is a writer, poet and a B.Com graduate from the University of Cape Town. She has been with the Art Africa Centre for four years and project manager for Badilisha Poetry X-change for three years.

In 2013 she performed in Amsterdam at the Afro Vibes Festival alongside Dutch poet Babs Gons in a poetic production entitled “Becoming Another, Becoming you”.

She is also the founder and editor of Unbranded Truth Online Magazine (www.unbrandedtruth.com), an online magazine that serves as a catalyst for self-acceptance and self-evolution.

She has contributed to various publications and continues to freelance.

Lebo Mashile

The poet, performer, actress, presenter and producer Lebogang Mashile, the daughter of exiled South Africans, was born in the U.S. in 1979. At the age of sixteen years she and her parents returned to their home country. It was while she was studying law and international relations at Wits University in Johannesburg that the desire to work as an artist took hold of her. In her work as a life skills facilitator for adolescents ñ focusing on topics like gender issues, teamwork and sexuality ñ poetry has been her preferred medium. Mashile regards its expressive power as the most effective tool to bring about those changes in mental attitude that are needed in the aftermath of the socio-political changes in post-apartheid South Africa. “The enemy isnít really clear in the way it was before. It’s an incredibly sensitive, complicated struggle with many dimensions, but the site for that struggle is inside. … The language of poetry comes from a place where that transformation has to begin, that sort of intuitive, creative, spiritual searching place that will be the fuel for any kind of transformation process.”

Mashile began to achieve recognition as one of South Africa’s most popular young artists in 2002 when she performed her hip-hop inspired poetry at the Urban Voices Spoken Word and Music Festival to a large audience. She was the presenter and producer of the television programme L’Atitude, a concept that she co-executive produced with Curious Pictures. Throughout its three seasons and seventy-eight episodes she introduced the viewers to the personal stories of a diverse cross section of South Africans and their relationships with their immediate surroundings. These insights were gained from her travels through South Africa. The series reached an audience of over two million households.

Her lyrical and gutsy poems in the collection A Ribbon of Rhythm (2005) also speak about life in the new South Africa. Issues such as the diversity and unity of the “Rainbow Nation”, the status of women, violence and the fragility of individuals are all treated with a sense of urgency, humour and at times with melancholy and a certain rawness. Mashile’s self-produced album Lebo Mashile Live! combines her performance poetry with hip-hop, house and R & B.

In June of 2008, Mashile published her second anthology entitled Flying Above the Sky. This collection marks the poet’s first foray into self-publishing. In October of 2008, Mashile wrote and performed in a cross-media and cross-generational collaboration with renowned choreographer Sylvia Glasser entitled Threads. One can find Mashile’s thoughts in her monthly column, In Her Shoes, which she writes for True Love magazine. She can currently be seen on South African television screens as the presenter of Drawing the Line, a game show on SABC2 dealing with moral issues. The show is now in its second season.

In 2006 she was awarded the prestigious Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, the premier prize for African literature. The Jury characterised her poetry as of “a distinct oral flavour, developing oral poetry and performance beyond the boundaries of the poetry of the era of resistance”. In 2007, she was the recipient of the City Press/ Rapport Woman of Prestige Award. Mashile lives in Johannesburg.

Omnyama

Omnyama (the black one), birth name Asanda Vokwana was born and buttered in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Her provocative voice has graced numerous stages in South African. Traces of her Past her debut album – working alongside Bongani Tulwana – is a recollection of the realities of being young, black and female.

Jethro Louw

Jethro is a poet from Cape Town, born in Beaufort West in the Eastern Cape. He lives in a township. He is a ghetto poet, largely considered to be the godfather of spoken word in Cape Town. And alongside poets such as Lesego Rampolokeng, Mzwakhe Mbuli and Mzwandile Matiwana, he ranks as one of the nation’s key voices, a noteable “word-bomber”. Jethro uses the power of his words to bring back to life the discontinued heritage of his culture. His work revitalises the legacy of stories and the wealth of storytellers of the KhoiSan people. For centuries, the members of this community have been silenced by the gun and the bullet and the wall. The results are a lack of formal skills and access to infrastructure to turn those skills into income, subsequently a lack of identity and self esteem.

Jethro Louw’s compositions and performances feature on Volume One of the Coffeebeans Routes’ Bootleg Series, by the Khoi Khollektif, in collaboration with several Cape Town acts. The tracks are all live recordings from shows in Cape Town between 2004 and 2007. Jethro also features on the Goemarati compilation, with his track In a Third World, a collaboration with Black Rose.

Jessica Horn

Uganda No Comments

Poet, activist, interpreter of the ordinary; heiress of a nomadic lineage extending into the Ruwenzori Mountains of Uganda and the shadows of New York’s Yankee Stadium. Jessica Horn won the IRN Fanny Ann Eddy Poetry Prize in 2009 for her poem They have killed Sizakele and the Sojourner Poetry Prize judged by June Jordan in 2001 for her poem Dis U.N: For Rwanda. Her prose-poem Dreamings was profiled in the International Museum of Women’s online exhibition Imagining Ourselves. She is also the author of a collection Speaking in Toungues (Mouthmark, 2006). Jessica works in Africa and internationally on issues of women’s rights, health, violence and peace building.

James Matthews

James Matthews, poet, writer and publisher, has produced five books of poetry, a collection of short stories, a novel and an anthology of poetry, which he edited. Most of his work was banned under the previous government and was translated and published overseas. For 13 years he was denied a passport and was placed in detention from September to December 1976. Solitary confinement was widely used during the apartheid years; its purpose being to disorient, to dehumanize, to undermine the detainee’s sense of self-identity. James Matthews waged a struggle against this agenda with the one weapon the jailers couldn’t take away from him – his ability to turn words into poems.

In 1980 Matthews participated in the Frankfurt Book Fair, and in 1982 he participated in the Cultural and Resistance Conference in Gaborone. He was awarded a Fellowship at Iowa University, U.S.A. and was the founding member of the Vakalisa Art Association and founding member and Patron of the Congress of South African Writers. James Matthews is the first black person to have established an art gallery (Gallery Afrique) in South Africa, and is the first black to have established a publishing house (BLAC Publishing House 1974 -1991) The publishing house closed in 1991 due to constant harassment by the previous government. Matthews is the recipient of the Woza Afrika Award (1978), Kwaza Honours List – Black Arts Celebration, Chicago, U.S.A.(1979) and the Freeman of Lehrte and Nienburg, Germany (1982). In 2010, he was given an award by the City of Cape Town.

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Gabeba Baderoon