Poetry Career
As a spoken word artist, poetry allowed Yusef the aesthetic freedom to comment on a wide breadth of personal and social issues while his lyrics remained commensurate with a global vision: to encourage the benevolence in all people. His voice incorporates street vernacular against backdrops of hip-hop beats, organic keyboards, guitars and horns. The Chi-town native has made his career as a “wordsmyth,” reciting verses that chronicle inner city life growing up on the urban streets of the Windy City. His lexicon tells stories that speak to both the intricate depths and heights of ghetto culture, as well as global socio-economic woes.
The inspiration to formulate his mosaic of words comes from his children, his dreams, the ancestors and other prolific poets. Some of his influences include Langston Hughes, William Shakespeare, Haki Madhubuti and Phillis Wheatley. His spoken word artistry has contributed to promotional campaigns including ASCAP, Sprite, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Chrysler, Verizon, Miller Brewing Co. and Nike.
Read more about this topic: Malik Yusef
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“Much verse fails of being poetry because it was not written exactly at the right crisis, though it may have been inconceivably near to it. It is only by a miracle that poetry is written at all. It is not recoverable thought, but a hue caught from a vaster receding thought.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)