Kevin Powell
 Kevin Powell has been hailed as one of the most important voices of his generation. Famed scholar Michael Eric Dyson calls Kevin “one of America’s most brilliant young cultural critics.” A poet, journalist, essayist, public speaker, hip-hop historian, political activist, and TV, radio, and internet commentator, Kevin is perhaps best known for his stint as a cast member on the first season of MTV’s hugely successful series “The Real World” (New York City). A prolific writer, Kevin’s articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in a range of publications like Newsweek, Code, Essence, The Washington Post, and Vibe, where he worked as a senior writer for several years, interviewing prominent figures such as Colin Powell, feminist scholar Dr. bell hooks, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Spike Lee, Aaliyah, Suge Knight, and, most famously, the late Tupac Shakur on several occasions.
An admitted workaholic and risk-taker, Kevin Powell has always lived his life on the edge, refusing to be trapped by the poverty that shaped his youth. The only child of a single mother who left the rural South in search of a better life, Kevin grew up on the mean streets of Jersey City, New Jersey. Through an intense yearning for knowledge and a great love of reading, he overcame countless obstacles to attend Rutgers University in the mid-to-late 1980s, studying Political Science and English. There he emerged as a prominent student activist alongside the then unknown Sister Souljah, working in the anti-apartheid movement, conducting voter registration drives, and launching a national Black youth and student alliance. Kevin also organized Black and Latino youth in New York City’s infamous welfare hotels and helped run a summer camp for these troubled young people in North Carolina. He went on to battle the problems of the inner city as a social worker in Newark, NJ, and later became an English instructor at New York University’s Saturday high school program.
Also by the late 1980s, ambition and a burning desire to tell the truth led Kevin to seek a journalism career, and he eventually began freelancing for The Black American, San Francisco Weekly, Rolling Stone, Interview, YSB, Emerge, The Amsterdam News, and elsewhere. “The Real World” established his public persona in 1992, and that same year Kevin wrote the cover story-on Treach and his rap group Naughty By Nature-for the premiere issue of Quincy Jones’ highly anticipated Vibe. Less than a year later Kevin was named a senior writer for Vibe, where he wrote exclusively until 1996, helping it to become one of the fastest growing pop-culture publications in history.
Despite his sudden entree into the glamorous world of television and
celebrity, Kevin remained true to his social conscience. He wrote and
hosted the award-winning MTV special “Straight from the Hood,” a
documentary about youth life in Los Angeles before and after the 1992
riots. And in an effort to encourage youth activism, he created
and coordinated “Get Up On It,” a multimedia political awareness
campaign launched in the November 1995 issue of Vibe.
Determined not to be pigeonholed in the journalism arena, Kevin stuck with his childhood literary dreams and published his first book, In the Tradition: An Anthology of Young Black Writers (1993), which he edited with Ras Baraka (son of noted writer Amiri Baraka). Kevin showcased his lyrical talent-honed in writing workshops and at the famous Nuyorican Poets Café and other venues-with a volume of poetry, recognize (1995). Kevin’s poetry has also been published in a number of literary journals and magazines, and he has read and performed his work to audiences throughout America and Europe.
Kevin’s other books include Keepin’ It Real: Post-MTV Reflections On Race, Sex, and Politics (1997), a collection of essays; and the recent Step Into A World: A Global Anthology of The New Black Literature (2000). This second anthology is a definitive collection of the best writers of the hip-hop generation, featuring Junot Díaz, Edwidge Danticat, Danzy Senna, Paul Beatty, Veronica Chambers, Joan Morgan, Ben Okri, Zadie Smith, Tony Medina, Jessica Care Moore, Farai Chideya, Christopher John Farley, and Sarah Jones among some 100 writers born between 1957 and 1977. Kevin Powell serves as editor of this historic text. Kevin’s upcoming book projects include Who’s Gonna Take The Weight, his second collection of essays, which will be published in the Fall of 2002; and Who Shot Ya? The Hip-Hop Photographs of Ernie Paniccioli, of which Kevin serves as editor.
Indeed it was through Kevin’s work as Guest Curator of the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s “Hip-Hop Nation: Roots, Rhymes, and Rage”-which originated at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and of which Kevin was the exhibition consultant-that he first met Ernie Paniccioli. That initial contact led to Who Shot Ya? It will be published by HarperCollins in the Spring of 2002, and has the distinction of being the first major pictorial history of hip-hop culture compiled by one photographer.
Because of his television exposure and literary and journalism work, Kevin is also a highly sought after public speaker: he has lectured on racism, sexism, American popular culture, Black and American history, Martin Luther King, Jr., contemporary literature, multiculturalism, and the history of hip-hop at dozens of colleges and universities across America, including Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Howard, Indiana University, the University of Kansas, Wake Forest, and Spelman College, as well as various political, cultural, and corporate gatherings.
Additionally, Kevin is the co-creator, along with April Silver, of HipHop Speaks! which is both a quarterly community forum in New York City and a college speaking tour that stresses the history and four elements of hip-hop (the DJ, the MC, the graffiti writer, and the dance element) as well as the political and social responsibilities of hip-hop heads everywhere. Besides Kevin and April, the HipHop Speaks! college tour includes noted poet, activist, and educator Ras Baraka and Atlanta-based turntablist DJ Drama.
As for his future, Kevin says, matter-of-factly, “I am just taking this life one day at a time, man. Ain’t nothing promised tomorrow so I try to live every minute to the fullest, and any chance I get I try to help someone other than myself. My life-calling is to be a servant for the people, period. Money, fame, status, personal achievements, and all that means nothing to me when pain and suffering are still real on this planet. I am going to bite something Bobby Kennedy once said: I am just trying to cause a ripple in this big bad ocean.”
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