Leith Festival have teamed up with Edinburgh Festival Carnival to bring you a night of local and international spoken word & hip hip talent.

The event will open with an open mic opportunity for the first hour of this event, for any local spoken word, poetry, hip-hop artists that would like to share their work. There is no set theme and sign up will be open from 6:45pm

Open Mic from 7-8pm

Featured Artist from 8:30pm

• Musenga Katongo: Spoken Word artist from Zambia
• Rycon (Daphline Boakye Danquah): Rapper from Ghana
• Werd: Hip Hop artist from Leith
• Anita Govan: Performance poet from Edinburgh

Musenga Katongo is an award winning creative arts entrepreneur and founder of creative arts platform, Colour Culture Arts. He is a three time international and local poetry slam champion, a TEDx Performer and an award nominated author.

In June, 2019 he successfully launched his creative arts platform ‘Colour Culture Arts’ that has held multiple youth centred arts showcases and activities. These activities aim at educating young people about Zambian culture and history through poetry and visual arts with the vision of creating a society that celebrates cultural diversity.

Internationally, Musenga has represented Zambia in the first and third editions of Digipoems, a collaborative programme that involved poets and digital artists from across the Southern African region and the United Kingdom, in 2019 and 2021 respectively. He is also the first non-Zimbabwean to win the 2019 Intwasa Poetry Slam held in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. In that very year, he emerged victorious at the inaugural Alliance Francaise de Lusaka Talent Show in the ‘Spoken Word’ category.

In 2020, he received the ‘Cultural/Artistic Achievement Award’ from the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Child Development and National Youth Development Council for his outstanding contribution to culture and arts in Zambia

In 2021 he performed at TEDxLusaka where he performed his original poem entitled ‘Walking Museum’ that advocated for the practicality of the content in African museums in modern society.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTTAZ4i7jNg

Rycon is an up and coming rapper and eco-video maker from Ghana. At just 18-years old Rycon is quickly becoming a rising light in hip-hop and a passionate workshop leader in her specialisms of performance and lyric writing. Joining the 2022 Edinburgh International Festival line-up is sure to be another learning experince for Rycon and we are excite to see her big stage performance experience, translated in the intimate upstairs space at Ooh Mami.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCmavM5t5CA

Werd (SOS) is an Edinburgh based hip-hop artist who continues to work with new and old artists in Scotland and abroad, creating music with some of Scotland’s top producers and artists in the genre. Werd has worked with BBC Radio 1’s Charlie Sloth as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Scottish rap showcase, performing live on the famous Royal Mile.

Furthermore, he featured in BBC 1Xtra documentary Rap Britannia – The UK State of Rhyme, A visual story from 1Xtra following Charlie Sloth’s journey to find out about rappers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland; the follow up to the award-winning It’s Grime Up North.

In 2011 Werd won Urban Recording of the Year at the Scottish New Music Awards for the Vagabonds in Space release along with Wardie Burns, Zambian Astronaut and Mog.

He has also worked at youth workshops in Edinburgh using beat boxing, rapping and lyric writing. Mainly focused on writing lyrics and performing rap with young people, he has taught at ‘Pilton Youth and Children’s Project’ and ‘Dance Base’ located in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket.

https://werd.bandcamp.com/

Anita Govan: is a performance poet & teaching artist. Stirling Makar from 2012/2015 & listed on the Scottish Book Trust, Live Literature List,

An early pioneer of Scottish spoken word and performance poetry scene. Anita has been described as the “Jannis Joplin of performance poetry”, “Passionate performance delivered straight from the heart” and her poetry “Artfully sculpted” (Sunday Herald) with “Bright glittering vocabulary” (the Guardian).

Anita was also the Co-founder of BigWord (Scotland) 2000/4 with Jem Rolls, Scottish Youth Poetry Slam 2004/18 with ConFAB & presently, Co-founder of Camena LTD, a boutique training and development company offering the very highest standards of innovation, performance, and integrity to business.

She has worked extensively with disadvantaged communities and young people. Including working extensively with Youth & Slam poetry. She has appeared on BBC Radio & STV and was invited to performed at the Nuyorican in New York and at Glastonbury. She received, five stars for PoeJazz Spoken World in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/anitagovan

© 2022 Leith Festival. Scottish Charity Number: SC283758