Muhibb Dyer
“My poetry tells the stories of all my friends who never got a chance to get off the block,” says Muhibb Dyer as he walks through an abandoned section of Milwaukee known as Lil’ Beirut. “If I am able to save just one life or keep one young person from going to jail, I’ve done my job.” Reaching to the core of the hearts of his audiences, Muhibb has spent years bringing them to their feet with his gritty, “no holds barred” renditions of the tales of urban life. Muhibb has garnered the attention of many notables in the spoken word genre. Wanting to live and teach the messages he brings, Muhibb began a successful campaign to bring the art of the spoken word to inner city youth. He has conducted several seminars and workshops in the Milwaukee Public School system encouraging youth to take responsibility for their futures. A native Milwaukean, Muhibb began counseling and mentoring youth through various programs while he was still in high school himself. But for Muhibb the ultimate satisfaction comes when he is able to tug at the hearts of young men on Milwaukee’s streets corners. "Hey you're that guy who was yelling at all those rich people on TV -- I wish I could do that!" shouts a grinning neighborhood boy who saw a performance on a local cable channel. Muhibb just laughs and says, "Little Brother, you can do whatever you put your mind to."
Notable
• The Children Are Crying Calendar
• Local Finals Def Poetry Jam
• MATC Dinner With Geronimo Pratt
• National Poetry Slam Top Ten
• The Great Chicago Fire-Malik Yusef
• Congressional Black Caucus
• Democractic Gain
• BET's Cousin Jeff Chronicles
• Inspirator vs.Innovator
Kwabena Antoine Nixon
“I’m the representation of 400 years of little Black and Brown boys who were told that they would never amount to anything,” says Kwabena Antoine Nixon as he recites his crowd favorite poem “Holla” at his weekly poetry set at Milwaukee’s Taboo Night Club. As he closes the piece, he leaves the stage with 150 of his faithful followers joining him in the famous Black Art’s Movement era chant “Nation Time.” Born and raised in the Windy City, Kwabena lost his father to street violence at the age of 11. By the time he was in his late teens Antoine (as he was known then) was headed down a similar path. After years of trying to live up to his Dad’s legacy he finally had enough and 10 years ago he made the 90-mile move north to Milwaukee. Two years later he fully completed the transformation to Kwabena when a local community elder gave him the name meaning “Inspirator”. "You can’t let the hood define who you are. You have to have vision," says Kwabena as he speaks the next day before an audience of incarcerated youth at The Milwaukee Juvenile Detention Center. After finishing a poem for the teenaged boys he picks up a pen and triumphantly says, "I survived because I had an outlet. What's your outlet going to be? Mine is poetry."
Notable
• 1 Mic 1 Voice
• Word Play
• Remember Langston
• Turning Boys to Men
• Dark Pearl
• 1 Luv 4ever
• It Ain’t Ova
• Democractic Gain
• Congressional Black Caucus
• Inspirator vs Innovator
