Sharrif Simmons

Sharrif Simmons is a spoken word poet, author, and musician whose writing and performance career spans several decades. He emerged from New York City's explosive spoken word poetry scene during the early 90's and quickly made a name for himself performing alongside poets like Mike Ladd, Wood Harris, and Saul Williams at popular New York venues like Nuyorican Poets Café, Brooklyn Moon Café, CBGB's, The Blue Note and Joe's Pub, to name a few. Recently, Sharrif was offered the historic invitation to join his mentor Abiodun Oyewole as a legacy member of the seminal poetry group The Last Poets. The induction ceremony-to be held in Sao Paolo Brazil-honors Sharrif with the historic distinction of being the first of his generation to read and perform as an official new member of The Last Poets. He recently toured Europe with the project: Black Lives from Generation to Generation. The 15-member group, musically directed by legendary bass player Reggie Washington, features Sharrif's poem We Are Here recorded with long time collaborators David Gilmore and Marque "Innamost" Gilmore. Sharrif's independently produced first album The Echo Effect (2005) was released to critical acclaim and confirmed him as a generational voice in the modern spoken word poetry movement. His appearance on Season 5 of HBO's Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry Jam expanded his audience across the globe. His upcoming album project-Shadows at Work-is looking for a label to call home. To date, the project includes tracks produced by Belgium's legendary DJ Grazzhoppa, Amsterdam based DJ/artist/videographer Dimitri Madimin (tribute to Gil Scott Heron) and Amsterdam based producer Jeff Croese.