beluvid ola-jendai

beluvid ola-jendai is a Cave Canem poet and was awarded a New York Foundation of the Arts fellowship for poetry in 2001. Between 1995 and 2005, he actively performed at spoken word venues throughout New York City and self-published two bodies of work, “Butterflies in Disguise” and “A Place Called There.” He edited Mikaylah Simone’s “My Manufactured English” and, as an extension of a summer arts series, produced its collaborative cd project entitled “I Am.” Between 2001 and 2005, he founded and actively moderated an online community of artists called melanation. Ola also led the Urban Lyricists Artist Collective based in Flatbush, Brooklyn where he evolved a style of poetry that is half-spoken, half-sung and heavily utilizes Ebonics as lexicon.