Doors open at 7pm. Show starts at 8pm.
Dinner available for purchase from HoodFellas Bistro and Catering. Adult beverages from Sassy Shots.

Poetry has been and continues to be experiencing a renaissance. Artist, poet and entrepreneur Danny Simmons recognized this several years ago in founding Def Poetry Jam which was responsible for discovering many young talented poets and visual artists, several of whom went on to fame, including Saul Williams, Kanye West, Kehinde Wiley, and Wangechi Mutu.

Join us for the Baltimore installation of this critically acclaimed, intimate series of performances by world renowned musicians paired with icons from the world of poetry, delivered against a backdrop of curated visuals featuring established and emerging artists in celebration of Artscape, the return of Simmons to his family home, and the indelible mark his cousin – lauded artist Derrick Adams – has made on both the local and national arts landscape.

Click here to read the full press release.

Our musical guests include:
Jamaaladeen Tacuma‘s Band of Resistance featuring guitarist Jake Morelli, Marc Cary on keyboard, and Wes Watkins on percussion
Lezlie Harrison
Khemist

Words:
Toni Blackman
Derick D. Cross
Kraal “Kayo” Charles
Bonafide Rojas
Baltimore Slam Team

A virtual art display curated by Alma Roberts that will include:
Anita Henley Carrington
Ram Sueno
Tanya Bracey
Erasto Curtis Matthews
Thomas Dade
Marie Antoinette Diaw

This event is made possible through the generous support of Verizon.

About Our Honoree
Derrick Adams (b. 1970, Baltimore, MD) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. He received his BFA from Pratt University, New York, in 1996 and graduated with an MFA from Columbia University, New York, in 2003. Adams has held numerous teaching positions and is currently a tenured assistant professor in the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts at CUNY Brooklyn College, and has received an Honorary Doctorate from MICA. Adams celebrates and expands the dialogue around contemporary Black life and culture through scenes of normalcy and perseverance. He has developed an iconography of joy, leisure, and the pursuit of happiness within a practice that encompasses paintings, sculptures, collages, performances, videos, and public projects. Adams synthesizes representational imagery with planar Cubist geometry to produce multifaceted figures and faces that address the richness of the Black experience.

In 2022, Adams established Charm City Cultural Cultivation, an organization to support and encourage underserved communities in the city of Baltimore through events conducted by three entities: The Last Resort Artist Retreat, a residency program that subscribes to the concept of leisure as therapy for the Black creative; The Black Baltimore Digital Database, a collaborative counter-institutional space for collecting, storing, and safekeeping the data of local archival initiatives; and Zora’s Den, an online community of Black women writers started in January 2017, which has since expanded into in-person writing workshops, a writers’ circle, and a monthly reading series that strive to promote instruction, support, and social engagement.

About The Featured Artists
Danny Simmons, Jr., is an American abstract painter from Queens, NY, who once coined his particular style of painting as “neo-African Abstract Expressionism.” His talent and passion for the arts reaches beyond the canvas. He is a published author, poet, painter and art philanthropist. He has become a leader in the art world with his philanthropic ventures, artistic talents and creative mind and drive. Danny Simmons also played an instrumental role in the nation’s newfound love for poetry, particularly in the conceiving of and co-producing the hit HBO show Def Poetry Jam, a weekly TV series that exhibits an eclectic blend of old-school poets (such as legendary expressionists Nikki Giovanni and Amiri Baraka) and new-school poets. Its success is quite evident: Def Poetry is now offered as an elective at the University of Wisconsin, and Simmons won a Tony Award for the Broadway version of the show. Simmons is co-founder – along with his siblings, music mogul Russell and hip hop legend Joseph Simmons aka “Rev Run” – and president of the Rush Arts Gallery. He is also founder and VP of the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization “dedicated to providing disadvantaged urban youth with significant arts exposure and access to the arts.” He is a former board member of the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Public Library, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Conference of Artists. And his own works have been obtained by art lovers and renowned celebrities everywhere, including: music industry executive/producer Lyor Cohen, film director/producer Stan Lathan, late musical producer Andre Harrell, actor Ron Perlman, renowned businessman Olivier Sarkozy, actress Annabella Sciorra, actor Will Smith, and many others. Danny Simmons holds a Bachelor’s degree in social work from New York University, a Masters in public finance from Long Island University, and is the recipient of an honorary Ph.D. from Long Island University. He continues to thrive at his ‘home gallery’ in Philadelphia, PA.

Few musicians leave their audiences with a feeling that they have truly witnessed something amazing. Artist/Producer/Performer/Arranger/Innovator AND Bassist – Jamaaladeen Tacuma does just that. This native Philadelphian has always stretched the old mold of what and how a bassist is supposed to play. Tacuma has simply re-defined his instrument’s artistic potential.In the mid 70’s, his creatively free approach to the bass caught the eye and ear of the legendary saxophonist Ornette Coleman. He has performed and recorded with saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, Grover Washington Jr., David Murray, Odean Pope, Wolfgang Puschnig, and James Carter. He has worked with orchestras led by Anthony Davis at Carnegie Hall, to recording and performing with the Hip Hop rap group The Roots, DJ King Britt and DJ Logic. He has even written music for the hit TV show, “The Cosby Show.” He has worked with poets Jayne Cortez, Quincy Troupe, Amiri Baraka and co-wrote and co-produced a song entitled “WOMEN FIRST” with the R&B Neo Soul group from Philadelphia, KINDRED (the family soul) on their new CD recording “IN THIS LIFE TOGETHER,” on the Hidden Beach/Motown label (2006).

About Our Curator
Alma Roberts is a Baltimore-based, second generation abstract expressionist artist. At the age of 62, she literally picked up a paint brush and began producing what has been described as “fully formed, energetic abstract compositions” that belied the fact that she was at the time, new to the medium. Her works provide an insight into her viewpoints on life and the issues and forces that impact it. Roberts has had numerous exhibits over the course of the ten years she has been painting. In 2017, she had a successful solo exhibition at the City Hall Gallery in her beloved hometown of Baltimore. She also has one of her compositions (A Vessel Full of Power, 2017) in the permanent collection of the James E. Lewis Museum at her undergraduate Alma Mater, Morgan State University (Baltimore). Roberts is a founding member of the Joshua Johnson Council at the Baltimore Museum of Art. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History and Culture and is also a Commissioner on the Baltimore Public Art Commission that oversees and approves the installation and maintenance public art throughout the city.