Otis Mensah (UK)

Party und Konzert. Präsentiert von Heavy Feelings & King Georg, Support: Rachel

Otis Mensah is a musician and multidisciplinary artist who explores the intersection of poetry and experimental music. Influenced by the rhythmic and expressive freedom of jazz, Otis’s work uses aesthetic language as a tool to address issues of race, identity, gender, and the body. Since being named Sheffield’s first Poet Laureate in 2018, Otis has sold out the debut poetry collection Safe Metamorphosis, to be released by Prototype in 2020, debuted at Glastonbury, We Out Here, and Shambala Festival, and performed with artists including Moor Mother, Nightmares On Wax, Benjamin Zephaniah, Lava La Rue, Mahalia, and Little Simz. Building on previous work and their tenure as Sheffield’s first Poet Laureate, Otis is also a recipient of the Jerwood Arts Live Work Fund and Arts Council England’s Developing your Creative Practice. The versatile creative has collaborated with Arrested Development, among others. The next EP will be released in September via Berlin-based label Lekker Collective.

“As the first hip-hop artists to be awarded the title of Poet Laureate in the UK, they want to use the position to break down barriers, smash the stuffy stereotype and remind people that poetry is for the people.”-The Guardian