Speaking Volumes

Lyrispect is an award-winning lyricist, author, activist, educator and voiceover artist. She is an advocate for Black Folx, women, girls, people of color and marginalized communities.

This Temple University graduate has performed across the world and been a cultural curator for 10 of her 20+ year career. She serves on the board for the “Leaders of Tomorrow Youth Center”, in Baltimore, Maryland and currently resides in Philadelphia where she is the newest member to the social justice-based youth band, “City Love”. Lyrispect has held sustained leadership roles in organizations as BLACK GIRLS ROCK! and Array Releasing. 

Her work has appeared at the NAACP National Convention, The Toni Cade Bambara Conference the U.S. premiere of Zanele Muholi’s Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail the Dark Lioness, on two murals, several citywide campaigns, and most recently by the Center for Cultural Power to interpret “Breathe Act” legislation, into poetry. She is the 2021 recipient of the Gold Telly Award for Voiceover Craft and of the “Shea Moisture” x “Good Mirrors Aren't Cheap” Emerging Visionary Award.  Whether curating teaching, organizing or performing, she infuses in all her work the belief that honest expression with layered execution can disrupt, heal, liberate and transform.

Legacy Thornton is a 21-year-old non-binary Black woman. They currently model and work night shift for USPS. In their free time, they have various creative ventures including but not limited to makeup, dance, and journaling. Legacy creates to free themself. Expression is integral to their livelihood. With their platform, they constantly share information and images beneficial to the Black community, particularly Black Womxn. They believe that minorities deserve to be represented and valued.

Jha D is an architect by day and a spoken word artist by passion. She has been performing, organizing, and hosting events for the past 15 years, and is the founder of the "if you can Feel it, you can Speak it" Open Mic Movement. The "Feel it, Speak it" Movement was the first monthly open mic in Boston dedicated to the voices of the LGTBQ+ Communities of Color, and in its 112h year it continues to be a Home in the community. In 2016, Jha D became the new Executive Director & Producer of Womxn of Color Weekend and is reawakening the 4-day Pride for WoC and non-binary/gender-fluid PoC. Jha D's poetry and space making is a celebratory exploration of identity, sexuality, and self-realization, and she professes that there is "undeniable art in expressing your own truth.

Black, poet, queer-god, hip-hop feminist, womanist: Porsha Olayiwola is a native of Chicago who now resides in Boston. Olayiwola is a writer, performer, educator and curator who uses afro-futurism and surrealism to examine historical and current issues in the Black, woman, and queer diasporas. She is an Individual World Poetry Slam Champion and the founder of the Roxbury Poetry Festival. Olayiwola is Brown University's 2019 Heimark Artist -In -Residence and a poet laureate fellow with the Academy of American Poets. The author of i shimmer sometimes, too published by Button Poetry and Olayiwola is the current poet laureate for the City of Boston. Her work can be found published with TriQuarterly Magazine, The Boston Globe, Essence Magazine, Redivider, The Academy of American Poets, Wildness Press, The Museum of Fine Arts, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and elsewhere. Olayiwola joined the faculty of Brandeis University as the Jacob Ziskind Poet-In-Residence in Fall of 2022.

Phree is a Boston born Multidisciplinary Artist, Entrepreneur, Artivist and founder of the Bois & B.S Collective - a working space for Masculine-of-Center Queer/Trans, Non-binary People of Color to heal, break barriers and build bonds. They began journaling and poetry writing at the age of 14 and by 2010 performing became a way to fight the system of silencing and a form of therapy. Their work consists of topics ranging from intergenerational trauma, cycles of abuse, healing and identity. Phree uses their voice as a tool to fight for self liberation, influence the power of passion and affirms the importance of radical self love. Phree released their debut single “Phree At Last” in 2021 on all music platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon and YouTube.

Staceyann Chin is a poet, actor, performing artist, and author of the new poetry collection Crossfire: A Litany For Survival, the critically acclaimed memoir The Other Side of Paradise, co-writer and original performer in the Tony Award–winning Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, and author of the one-woman shows Hands Afire, Unspeakable Things, Border/Clash, and MotherStruck. She has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and 60 Minutes, and her poetry has been featured in The New York Times and Washington Post. She proudly identifies as Caribbean, Black, Asian, lesbian, a woman, and a resident of New York City, as well as a Jamaican national.