Laura "piece" Kelley

Laura "piece" Kelley-Jahn recently opened for the Dalai Lama in Seattle.  She was Seattle’s Grand Slam Champion (Hip Hop competition) for 2004-2005.  Her contribution to Seattle's richly diverse musical scene has earned her a place in the archives of Seattle's Experience Music Project museum.  She has been featured in the documentary Underground Poets Railroad.  In 2007, Piece will be performing her one woman show "Two Sided See Through Mirror".  Piece has worked with the Power of Hope and compiled several full length compilations featuring young artists through this Seattle based non-profit organization.

Laura works with schools, institutions, and gatherings to create a democratic space by engaging creativity with spoken word.   Laura creates writing and music workshops for youth using urban arts and culture to express the realities of growing up in today's society. She has developed hands-on intensive camps where students create, perform and record their own work.  She has designed workshops in media literacy and community activism to encourage examination of the messages in mainstream music.

The hip hop culture and its elements are a social movement created as a reaction to the systematic deconstruction of the civil rights movement.  Hip hop functions as a safe place for youth seeking refuge from destructive subsistence urban.  Commercialization of hip hop has created a distorted perception of hip hop, as global corporations use the medium of hip hop to promote misogyny and drug culture, perpetuating a cycle of social oppression. Modern hip hop artists are undoing the negative messaging of pop culture and reclaiming the media.

Activism requires action.  Spoken word and poetry has a special power to engage youth to put their creative thoughts into action where they can affect all of society.  Spoken Word can help people picture possibilities for themselves, respond to new ideas, and engage in solutions.  Throughout history the creative arts have been instrumental in social progress, giving voice to those less heard, as a vehicle for Social Change.