MLF26: Carolyn Forché & Kwame Dawes

To mark the first anniversary of D’Angelo’s passing, The RAP Party invites you to Brown Sugar. Hosted by Inua Ellams, this special event gathers 10 incredible contemporary poets from Greater Manchester (and neighbouring cities) to create and share new verse in response to Brown Sugar. One of the most important R&B records of the 1990s, Brown Sugar instantly established D’Angelo as one of the most gifted artists of his generation and is widely credited as a founding text of the neo-soul movement.

What might eloquent voices from contemporary poetry and spoken word movements have to say about our present realities? What could be the soundtrack to our day-to-day lives? Come chill and find out at Inua Ellams’ Rhythm And Poetry Party, a nostalgic, no-clutter, no-fuss, night of live poetry and music.

Featuring Princess Arinola Adegbite, Griot Gabriel, Khadijah Ibrahiim, Segun Lee-French, Toreh O’Garro, Ella Otomewo, Keisha Thompson, Yusra Warsama, Reece Williams and Inua Ellams.

Princess Arinola Adegbite (P.A. BITEZ) is a multi-award winning British Jamaican Nigerian surrealist poet, musician, and filmmaker who fuses social activism with Afrofuturistic sensibilities. Her accolades include Manchester Young Creative of the Year 2021, the Eric Gregory Award 2023 for her poetry collection Algorithms of Meaning and the 2025 Northern Writers Debut Award for Poetry 2025. Her poetry has been commissioned by BBC, Selfridges, Chanel, The British Museum and the University of Cambridge.

Inua Ellams is a Nigerian born poet, playwright & performer, graphic artist & designer and founder of The Midnight Run, The Rhythm and Poetry Party (The R.A.P Party) and Poetry + Film / Hack (P+F/H). Identity, Displacement & Destiny are reoccurring themes in his work, where he tries to mix the old with the new: traditional African oral storytelling with contemporary poetics, paint with pixel, texture with vector. His books are published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches, Penned In The Margins & Bloomsbury.

Griot Gabriel is a Manchester-based poet, workshop facilitator, and dedicated professional youth worker. His poetry delves into themes of race, identity, political resistance, and faith. The winner of the Forward Prize for Best Performed Poem, Gabriel has written and performed commissioned pieces for Warner Bros and CHANEL and has taken the stage at Glastonbury Festival.

Khadijah Ibrahiim, born in Leeds to Jamaican parents, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Doctor of Letters, literary activist, theatre maker and published poet. She has performed and produced work across the USA, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. She is founder and Artistic Director of Leeds Young Authors, executive producer of the award-winning documentary We Are Poets, and recently worked with the Royal Ballet and Opera as librettist for Sing, Dance, Leap celebrating Bradford 2025.

Segun Lee-French is a Manchester-based singer, poet, composer, playwright, film-maker and club promoter. He first came to prominence as vocalist with Earthling on Cooltempo, touring Europe and performing on MTV, BBC1, VH1 and Canal 5. As poet and playwright, his work has been commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and Radio Manchester; his debut show, Bro 9, won Best Fringe Performer at the MEN Theatre Awards. After a decade leading cultural strategy at Islington Council, he returned to music with Velvet Glitch, a ceremonially strange sound world built on rare Japanese synthesizers. He is currently developing All About Love, reimagining love songs as radical resistance, after bell hooks and Omid Safi.

Toreh O’Garro is a visually impaired poet and curator from Moss Side. His work explores inclusive accessibility, interpretation and participation through writing subjective audio and image descriptions to enhance arts engagement for blind and sighted audiences.

Ella Otomewo is a poet, performer, and creative facilitator based in Manchester. She has an MFA in Poetry from Manchester Writing School and is the New Writing Producer at Cultureword. Ella regularly collaborates with other artists to create live art, performance, and community art projects. Her most recent collaborations have been with Quarantine, Young Identity, Queer Up North, Museum of Science and Industry, Culture Coop, and Manchester Literature Festival.

Keisha Thompson FRSA is a Manchester based writer, performance artist and producer. She is currently the Programme Manager for Legacies of Enslavement Programme at The Guardian. In 2024, she published a chapbook of sculptural poetry called Dé-rive as a part of T.S. Elliot residency with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. She has supported artists such as Kae Tempest, Hollie McNish, The Last Poets, Saul Williams and Amiri Baraka.

Yusra Warsama is a performance poet, actor, writer, and theatre practitioner based in Manchester. Her work spans spoken word, storytelling, live art, and physical performance, with a focus on intimacy and the relationship between performer and audience. Her collaborations include Grace and Make–Believe with Quarantine and landmark spoken word theatre with Don Letts’ Speakers Corner. She is currently developing new work for Manchester International Festival 2027 and Triptych 2: Prodigal Sons with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Reece Williams is a towering presence on the northern spoken word, poetry and theatre scene. He joined poetry collective Young Identity in 2007, performing across the UK and internationally with Saul Williams, Kae Tempest, The Last Poets and the late Amiri Baraka. In 2025, he took his debut solo show, This Kind of Black, on a national tour-performing to raucous audiences up and down the country. Reece has worked on high-profile commissions for the Guardian and Penguin.

Join us for fresh perspectives on the timeless journeys, questions and reflections raised by D’Angelo. Presented by 05 Events in partnership with Manchester Literature Festival and Contact.