Poet, singer, MC, and multi-instrumentalist Dizraeli and multiple poetry slam winner Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa (a.k.a. Birdspeed) come together for an evening of live streamed spoken word performances and conversation. Hosted by Mama Tokus.

Apples and Snakes @ Home brings together some of the UK’s leading spoken word poets to deliver top line-ups right to your home! In these extraordinary times, we’re trying something new and exploring ways to digitally connect artists with each other and with our audiences, nationally and across the globe.

About the featured Artists:

Dizraeli
Dizraeli is a genre all of his own, and is long established as a gem of the world of spoken word. A BBC Poetry Slam champion, he has performed around Europe and played to audiences of thousands around the world. The Unmaster is his first self-produced album and an electrifying new sound, the first single from which has already won support from BBC 6 Music and Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide FM.

Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa
British born Barbadian raised artist Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa is a multiple slam champion known locally and internationally for her ability to captivate audiences by effortlessly weaving poetry, storytelling, satirical humour and movement. Her work is published in several anthologies, including Alter Egos (Bad Betty Press, 2019).

Hosted by Mama Tokus
Soulful jazz, blues, rhythm’n’blues and gospel-inspired, Mama T was also the longest running host of Forked, Apples and Snakes’ Plymouth-based cabaret night.


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Apples and Snakes | Spoken Word Trailblazers:
Apples and Snakes are England's leading spoken word organisation. We exist to champion poets and poetry in performance, amplify unheard voices and challenge expectations of what poetry is and can be.

A brief history of spoken word | performance poetry:
Throughout history and across all cultures stories have been told to entertain and connect communities. Since the mid 20th century a powerful new performance style has spread across the world: the spoken word poetry movement

Performance poetry or spoken word emerged from the jazz poetry of the 1920s and subsequent experiments of The Beat Generation writers. In the late 50s beat poetry found its way to the UK.

In the 1960s spoken word embraced its role as a popular voice for counterculture both in the US and the UK. During the US Civil Rights Movement poetry provided a powerful format for protest and artistic expression. During the 60s and 70s political black poetry laid the foundations of hip-hop in the US whilst the UK's ranting poets captured the anti-establishment feelings of punk.

In 1982 Apples and Snakes was founded in the upstairs room of a London pub. Soon after in 1984 the first poetry slam took place in Chicago.

As it developed, spoken word became a melting pot of influences from other art forms. Dub poetry grew out of the lyrical performance style of toasting, the Jamaican reggae scene of the 1960's.

Comedy poetry became a common feature of the cabaret scene and during the 90s spoken word artists started writing solo poetry shows. MC battles captured a popular consciousness and slams spread across the world. In the late 2000s poets began to get thousands then millions of views online inspiring more and more people and taking poetry into your front room

Currently spoken word poets around the world are headlining festivals, going viral and keeping the activist tradition alive.

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