Slam Poetry As The Art Of Slam Poetry

SLAM POETRY

Slam poetry, according to Smith (2013) slam poetry “as the art of competitive performance poetry. Invented in the 1980s by a Chicago construction worker named Marc Smith, slam is a fast-paced competition where poets have a limited amount of time to impress judges randomly selected from the audience. Performers use all the tricks of storytelling, songwriting, theatre, stand-up comedy and cold hard poetry to wheedle points out of the judges from 0.0 (terrible) to 10.0 (perfect).” I picked Mzwakhe Mbuli to write/research further about because of his work, the poems he writes, his music, the message his work carries, even the way he says his poems. The issues he dashes about in his poems are social matters that made me attentive to

As one would ask. He is one of South Africa’s popular and well known poets and also musician who has produced various hits and also various book of poems. He is well known as “The people’s poet, Tall man, Mbulism” because of his poems, however, Mbuli has a lot in his list of success. He is a devout former Deacon at Apostolic Faith Mission Church in Naledi Soweto South Africa and umbaqanga singer. He was born in Sophia town in 1980’s, but his family had to relocate to Soweto after the apartheid government who bulldozed the whole of Sophia town.

Some of the works he manufactured or released include a book of poems, Before Dawn issued in 1989,an album released in 1986 titled Change is Pain, Unbroken spirit which was released 1989, Africa released, in 1993 he released Resistance and Defense was released in 1992. His literatures are in English even haggard on his innate Zulu as well as outmoded praise poetry and rap. One of his recognized writing’s is a gripe piece about domination and Insurgency. However, the poem was initially forbidden, “Change is Pain” was the tittle of the poem, mounting pressure forced the South Apartheid Government to permit more liberty of speech, in which his first performance group was termed