BIO

Poet Kamau Daaood is the author of The Language of Saxophones: Selected Poems of Kamau Daaood, Citylights Publishers. He is a native of Los Angeles where he co-founded with drummer Billy Higgins, The World Stage Performance Gallery; a non- profit arts institution is Los Angeles. Kamau recorded the critically acclaimed CD Leimert Park, M.A.M.A. Records, winner of the Josephine Miles Pen Oakland Award. He was awarded The Durfee Foundation Artist Fellowship, California Artist Fellowship, Cave Canem Retreat / Workshop Fellowship, to name a few of more than a dozen such honors. Kamau has performed his work at countless venues such as Dunya and North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland, Earshot Jazz and Bumbershoot Festivals in Seattle, the Steppenwolf Theater and Guild Complex in Chicago, Getty and MOCA Museum in Los Angeles, National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta and the Schomburg Center in Harlem. His early development began as a young member of the Watts Writers Workshop and the Pan African People’s Arkestra, under the direction of pianist, Horace Tapscott.