The British rap icon, this year’s London Literature Festival co-curator, brings together some of the most exciting names in the London poetry and music scenes.
Join us for performances from visionary writers including Yomi Ṣode and Belinda Zhawi, followed by conversations and meditations on the lyrics and links to be found in poetry and rap.
Our artists explore the relationship between their forms and the ways each inspires the other. The line-up has been curated by British rap icon and co-curator of this year’s festival, Ghetts.
Born Justin Clarke and raised in East London, Ghetts combines razor-sharp, crystal-clear rhymes with smart humour and creative, intelligent wordplay.
In 2005, he released his debut mixtape, 2000 & Life. Since then he’s gone on to release five further mixtapes and four studio albums. Ghetts’ 2021 album, Conflict of Interest, reached number two on the Official UK Albums Chart, and earned Brit Award, Mercury Music Prize and NME Award nominations; plus DJ Mag Best of British and MOBO Award wins.
His new album On Purpose, With Purpose finds Ghetts expanding his sonic palette and sounding sharper, more unflinchingly honest and boldly confident than ever before. Soon after the release of On Purpose, With Purpose, Ghetts was awarded the inaugural MOBO Pioneer Award.
Yomi Ṣode is an award winning Nigerian British writer. His debut collection Manorism, published by Penguin in October 2022 alongside a stage adaptation at the Southbank Centre, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2023 and the TS Eliot Prize 2022. He was shortlisted for the Brunel International African Poetry Prize 2021 and received the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship in 2019. Ṣode’s acclaimed one-man show COAT toured nationally to sold-out audiences.
Belinda Zhawi is a Zimbabwean literary and sound artist based in south-east London. She is the author of the pamphlet Small Inheritances, and experiments with sound/text performance as MA.MOYO. Her work has been featured on various platforms, including The White Review, NTS, Boiler Room and BBC Radio. She’s held artist residencies with Triangle France, Cove Park, Serpentine Galleries and ICA London. Zhawi is the co-founder of literary arts platform, BORN::FREE.
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