POETRY & SPOKEN WORD
Words are often at the centre of what Rawz creates.
Finding Hip Hop in his early teens, Rawz began using lyric writing as a means of self-expression to bring emotional clarity. His quest to improve his craft soon lead him to spoken word, a medium that has become a foundation of his practice over the years.
Rawz is available for commissions, live performances and workshops involving poetry and spoken word.
Get in touch for more info.
He Was Frightened Of The Fish
Rawz wrote this poem in 2016 while working on a project with young people that hadn't been in the UK for long. Many of the children were fleeing from wars in their home countries and quite a few of them couldn’t speak much English. The project was about helping these young people to tell their memories in the form of stories and spoken word.
With a new friend that spoke a bit of his language and a bit of English, a sixteen year old member of the group told a story that went something like this:
"I was in a bad situation at home, so I decided to pay some money to get on a boat to Europe, the boat got in trouble and started to take on water, some people had problems in the water and they drowned, the water was cold and salty, I was frightened of the fish."
The "bad situation" he mentioned was that his friends and family in the next town started sending him videos of people being beheaded in their town square, they told him to run for his life, because his town was next. Can you imagine how terrifying that would have been? For a sixteen year old?
Filmed in the chapel at St John's College, Oxford in front of a beautiful window created by a refugee during World War Two, this performance video was first released on 24th Nov 2022 in solidarity with the vigil being held by Stand Up To Racism UK, Care 4 Calais and Trades Union Congress at Parliament Square, London in memory of those that drowned in the English Channel.
"I hope we can build a world together in which people no longer need to risk their lives to escape a terrifying situation, or at least one in which we are willing and able to give all the help needed to those that live through what must be one of the most difficult ordeals a person can face. Until we do, I’m gonna keep using my English for this." - Rawz
When She Waved Through The Window
Commissioned at the end of 2020, Rawz was asked to respond through lyrics and poetry to a true story captured by a city-wide volunteer programme set up during the first Covid 19 lockdown. Rawz presents the narrative as a fairy tale or fable, using metaphor to represent invisible barriers, the constant streams of information that distract us from the human connections that are often right in front of us waiting to be made. He conceptualised, produced, directed, and edited the video and co-composed the musical accompaniment.
SPOKEN WORD FOR SILENT FILMS:
Home & The Kodachrome Elegies
Inspired by the Japanese tradition of Benshi - where live narrators accompanied silent films, providing plot explanations, character voices, and commentary to enhance the audience's cinematic experience. Rawz was invited by Unseen Cinema to respond to two short films made without speech. The pieces he chose - Home by New Zealand film maker Thomas Gleeson, and The Kodachrome Elegies by American Jay Rosenblatt, look at the movement of time and place, taking audience on a journey through visual and spoken word dreamscapes to reside in a comfortable place not quite the same as before.
Both pieces were originally performed live in Stafford's Gatehouse Theatre as part of the Pocket Film Festival.
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CONTENT WARNING: The Kodachrome Elegies contains footage of the assassination of U.S.A. President John F Kennedy towards the end of the film.
COMING SOON - DIGGING CRATES: The Messiah Violin
This short film is based around a live recording made in the Ashmolean Museum's stringed instrument gallery, in the presence of the priceless Stradivari violin known as The Messiah - one of the iconic violin makers most celebrated masterpieces.
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Rawz' poetry questions the use of the violin as a silent collector's piece, played only a handful of times in it’s almost 300 year lifespan; casting the violin as a fairy tale princess, locked away by a possessive and paranoid king, a twisted act of protection preventing her beauty and her song being shared with the world. He performs the poem alongside cellist Lou Lyne and violinist Natalie V who co-composed a string accompaniment based on Vivaldi's Concerto in A Minor. The strings almost "sample" the Vivaldi's classic work, in tune with the Hip Hop sensibilities of Digging Crates, providing a dramatic and achingly compelling backing to Rawz' words. The piece explores notions of beauty, silence, expression and the value and purpose of art and collecting.
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In addition to writing and performing the spoken word, and initiating the project, Rawz also directed and edited the film.
RAWZ & Miles Ncube - Recorded Live @ OVADA
A delicately woven combination of Spoken Word and Mbira, this live recording was captured as part of a night of celebration marking the launch of Digging Crates Vol. 1, the show was presented to a capacity crowd at Oxford art gallery OVADA.
After a year working on the groundbreaking project, Inner Peace Records launched Digging Crates Vol. 1 with a live performance of the entire album. Before the main event, the gathered crowd were treated to an energetic performance from veteran African jazz band Wanda-NA-KL, followed by this intimate performance from two artists who struck up a friendship through their work together on the first ever Digging Crates project.