introducing spoken soul artist

 JaHipster

Off the side of the floodlit stage, wearing hoop earrings, an American-flag T-shirt, and a long denim skirt with a thigh-high slit, Matthews leans against a wall, awaiting her call to the mic. At 5-foot-9 and sporting a giant Afro, she doesn't need boots with five-inch stiletto heels to be seen in a crowd. But the boots are one of her trademarks, she says. With them on, she saunters better. She feels it when she takes the stage.

excerpt from feature story on JaHipster written by Afefe Tyehimba

JaHipster poses next to a painting by Uche Ukoh, proprietor of Gallery 409 in Baltimore, Maryland.

photo by Michael Northrop.

After three books of poetry, spoken soul artist JaHipster unleashes her poetic politic for the masses with her debut CD project, The Legend of AFRODITE (April 2003). This conscious diva soul poet hippie afro’d taurean tiger child is the re-evolution of the literary in spoken word.

With These Hips on the tip of her tongue and a microphone in her hand, spoken soul artist JaHipster debuted on the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. Metropolitan open-mic poetry and slam circuit in the spring of 1997. By the winter of 1997 she was on tour with a performance poetry troupe, Da Minista JaHipster and The SongBird. In 1998 she won her first slam and went on to become the BlackWords Grand Slam Champion in 1999 and a member of the Washington, D.C. National Slam Team in 2000.

To see JaHipster on stage is to know that she was born for it. She has shared stages with Saul Williams, Jessica Care Moore, Medusa, Pharoahe Monch, Jonathan Butler, Angela Bofield, Jaguar Wright, Roy Ayers and Maysa. She has performed the world over - from Maryland to Texas, from Morocco to Japan. She considers it a true blessing to be in such high demand. As a political and performance poetry artist, she maintains a level of poetic and performance integrity that has not been seen for some time. JaHipster has studied with Sonia Sanchez as a Hurston-Wright Foundation Fellow, appeared alongside Sister Sanchez, Ras Baraka and Tony Medina on the Jazz Poetry Kafe compilation CD, and has been on stage with Nikki Giovanni.

Bringing a voice and style to us with few rivals, her tone has been compared to Nikki Giovanni, her presence has been compared to The Last Poets, her wit without tongue biting has been compared to Gil Scott Heron, her substance has been compared to Lucille Clifton, her flow has been compared to Me'shell Ndegéocello, but JaHipster is her own woman.

As a child of the generation that invented hip-hop and the decade that began the contemporary jazz revolution, she has come to claim her place among the Poets of the People, retracing and re-inventing the paths lay by the greatest story-tellers of generations past and she will speak to and for generations present and future.

Let the LEGEND begin again.

You bring the (heart) beat; JaHipster will bring the afro pic.

Note from the diva:            Oh...  & about the flag t-shirt... it was one of those you had to be there moments. i was being interviewed by the city paper - the reporter was there, the photographer was there, the people were there - but as Afefe had been so true to me throughout our entire interview process, i decided just to do me (versus putting on a show for the camera). so that was the night i premiered my anti-war poem, the last great superpower. The shirt was so no one would mistake my intentions: i clearly have my anit-america moments (& i make no bones about that), but criticizing financially-motivated killing of men - on either side of the gunfire - is not one of them.