Hakeem Furious
Hakeem Furious, Denver, Colorado | slam poetry
Residency Dates: September 5 – October 26, 2017
Performance Thursday, October 26th, 2017
Doors open 6pm, Performance at 6:30pm
Dinner with the Ego and I slam poetry multimedia performance by Resident Artist Hakeem Furious and PlatteForum’s ArtLab Interns. The one-night only performance will be held on Thursday, October 26.
Dinner with the Ego and I was conceived of, directed and performed by Hakeem Furious during his two-month residency at PlatteForum in which he has worked with PlatteForum’s own award-winning ArtLab high school interns. Hakeem Furious and the interns have conducted poetry workshops together to investigate themes of loss, purpose, existential crises and consumerism, and concepts of the self and identity.
Hakeem Furious will also be launching the release of his self-published book of poetry, possessing the same title as the performance. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.
About Hakeem Furious
Hakeem Furious is the Co-Executive Director of SlamNUBA, an award-winning performance poetry event based in Denver, Colorado. Originating in 2006, SlamNUBA’s mission is to promote the creation and performance of poetry by cultivating literacy activities and engaging the community through the power of the written and spoken word. Hakeem Furious will represent Denver in the upcoming 2017 Individual World Poetry Slam competition in Spokane, WA. He has performed at the infamous Apollo Theater twice, and in 2014 he released his debut project Leaky Nostrils, Monogamous Swans, a blend of Hip Hop and Poetry.
He now travels the country performing poetry for a living and works on progressive music with his lyricist collective Cap 6, who have recently performed with major label artists including: Earl Sweatshirt (Columbia), Vince Staples (Def Jam), iLoveMakonnen (OvO), Talib Kweli (Warners Bros) and the Hip Hop pioneer KRS-ONE. Hakeem Furious is a member of Black on Black Rhyme LLC an international poetry troupe as a member of their slam committee and representing them as touring poet.In 2015, Hakeem was a member of the 4th place national Denver Mercury Cafe Slam team representing them on finals stage in Oakland. He was the venue champion of the 2016 Denver Mercury Team selection, 2016 Denver Mercury Individual World Poetry Slam competition representative and a competing member of the 2016 SlamNUBA team.
"My ultimate goal is to develop and increase the visibility and validity of the spoken word art form. For centuries griots, scribes, and writers have played a very central role in communities and providing social commentary and a historical record for the civilizations to come. We can even see it today with Hip-Hop being one of America's largest exports and rappers guiding popular culture.Specifically when it comes to Denver, there is a gap between the artist established in the spoken word scene and the amount of new poets entering the scene. My goal is to help develop some new youth and adult poets to make the poetry scene in Denver sustainable for another 10-20 years, which will help the community of people of color and the overall city with the continuation of spoken word."
