Toni BlackmanRane Arroyo
Hip Hop Performance Poetry

Poet Toni Blackman was the first Hip Hop artist selected to work as a Cultural Ambassador traveling with the U.S. State Department. She has performed in over sixteen different countries and has shared the stage with a host of artists including Mos Def, Sheryl Crow, Sara McLachlan, and Wu Tang Clan. Hip Hop historian and poet Kevin Powell notes that “just as Langston Hughes and the Beat writers embraced jazz as a way to frame their pursuit of higher truths, Blackman grabs the mic literally as if life depended on it, carving for herself a space where words are sacred, and where her literary objectives soar." Blackman is the author of Inner-Course: A Plea for Real Love, published in 2003. She is currently at work on her debut album and on her second book.