The Beginning of the End

We have given our voices, cracked open our hearts, shared our visionz, and experienced something that most people will never know or even dream of before Death. We did not make Final Stage, but we did cement our position as one of the top 20 teams in the nation. I have learned much from our journey. The most valuable being: dreams are not figments of your imagination; they are symbols for what your reality strives to be. God changes lives through our words, but words mean nothing without dreams. I'll be posting up pics from the rest of the event also. Stay tuned, anything can happen...

Slamily Reunion

As we travel through the valleys of the Mojave Desert, I sit, listening to Nas & Damian Marley- Africa Must Wake Up. I reflect on the past 3 days...

After arriving in Oklahoma City, we met up with Lauren, a kind-hearted local poet. Discussions of BNV, life in Oklahoma and deep metaphysical concepts acclimated us to where we would be spending the night. While we talked, a talented, young, abstract artist by the name of Briem gave me a piece of fan art he made for me.

Finally settled in, we went to a local burger joint to dine before the night's activities.

Unfortunately, we were not able to perform a show that night, however we did workshop with the local poets, Lauren and Collin, who helped us tremendously with our performance techniques. Posture, inflection and projection were the focus of our workshop.

We slept well that night and woke up early to hit the road again.

Passing through Groom, Texas (population 587), we ended up in Albequerque, New Mexico. Upon our arrival, we surprised John 'Survivor' Blake, former coach of Slam Richmond as well as Slam Dominion.

That night, Slam Dominion performed a few group pieces for an audience of approximately 20 people. We were followed by Albequerque's adult slam team who played a game of "poetry tag" which resulted in a plethora of amazing group pieces! They traded a few CDs with us and we left to rest.

The morning after, we visited a historical part of Albequerque known as "Oldtowne". It is primarily a place where artistic expression is still appreciated and it gave us hope for the future of art. For more detail on this part of our trip visit . I won't be able to upload the videos on Blogspot right now, but on my Tumblr, Bluntville (tumblr), videos of some of our individual performances along with two videos showing a tour of the Saint Felipe church and an explanation by Survivor of it's origins, will be posted immediately after this blog post.



That evening we met the Albequerque youth slam team and performed with each other sharpening our skills for the national competition only 48 hours away. One of the team members, Devonte, left us with his rap mixtape, which I might post online at a later date.

Dinner was at the Route 66 diner and shortly afterward we hit the road through the night. Listening to Devonte's mixtape, nervous about our next destination, San Fransisco, we rode into the desert night.




Show everyone you know the Kickstarter widget on the right side of my blog! Slam Richmond still needs donations to send the adult slam team to Boston for NPS (National Poetry Slam). Keep checking my blog for more updates!

PS- Why does the Holy Water look like toilet water?

Where in the World is Slam Dominion?

These are a few pics from day 1 of our trip to San Fransosco for BNV. I'll be uploading videos later. As of right now we are in Arkansas (just had some delicious food at a Cracker Barrel in Little Rock). Scratch that. I've just been notified that we're in Oklahoma. So, because my fingers are tired and voice primed from severe on-the-road practice, I'm gonna end this with a wish us luck by commenting on the posts as I update them. We've got a show in Oklahoma, so I'll update when that happens.

If you haven't already, check out that handy dandy Kickstarter widget on the right side of my blog. Slam Richmond still needs moolah for their trip to NPS. Even if you don't donate, I advise you to visit Slam Richmond at 5pm for the free writing workshop, followed by the free show at 8pm (poet time lol).

T-Minus Two Days Until BraveNewVoices (National Spoken Word Competition)

On July 15, 2011, Slam Dominion (Richmond's youth slam poetry team) will be driving out to San Fransisco in order to represent Virginia in the national poetry event known as BNV. Four young team members, including myself, will be gracing a national platform to perform spoken word poetry. Every team hopes to win first place by surviving finals, but the experience of meeting up with other poets from around the world is just as great.

In years past, hip-hop artists such as Common and Talib Kweli have hosted and/or been present for the festivities. HBO also has a series called "Russell Simmons Presents Brave New Voices", dedicated to following select teams and their journeys to BNV. Thousands of people will gather to hear their peers express themselves and give life to Word.

To support this arduous quest across America, you can donate directly to the team by clicking the Slam Richmond Kickstarter Widget, found on the right side of the home page on my blog. All proceeds go to the youth and adult teams and fund our trips to San Fransisco, CA and Boston, MA respectively.