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Slam Africa started as an entity between Spark Africa and Imani Inc. in 2008 as a movement to bring poets the much needed fire to overcome fear and conquer their audience.
Slam Africa is held every month and it will be celebrating its 37th event soon.
All the poems must be original. Poets that plagiarize works are immediately disqualified in the competition. To be eligible in the competition, a poet must have three memorized pieces of 3 minutes long. The length and style depends on the poet.
Slam Africa has opened doors for many poets. One of the well known poets is Dan “Number 8” Mwangi, a business reporter at NTV. He has an album which is a compilation of some of his poems. Another poet, Kennet B, has been battling Breast Cancer for years and has performed his environmental pieces in high profile events.
Pepe Haze is now an actor and has a few singles getting airplay. Tim Mwaura has been featured in the Shoko festival in Zimbabwe.
The list is long but basically Slam Africa helped each one of them in discovering their potential and achieving them.
Slam Africa is planning to do a huge festival by the end of this year and plans to have a television show.
By Akil Ahmed
