Hammer & Tongue ft Jah-Mir & Muneera Pilgrim

We're back for our May Slam and your last chance to get through to our regional final 2019!

Our headliner is Jah-Mir!
If writing and sharing poetry is like holding up a mirror to your soul and then laying it bare for the audience, then Early’s style of extemporaneous poetry is also like opening a vein and letting every part of you flow out.” from Bunbury magazine.

Jah-Mir Early is an American poet, storyteller and the UK's foremost improv spoken word artist. He describes his works as “ Putting people on a couch in my mind”
.Jah-Mir has appeared as an invited guest artist for the BBC Edinburgh Fringe Slam, and performs regularly with Triple Jam Sandwich (Ronnie Scott's) and monthly at the Hip Hop jam night Imaginary Millions (The Book Club). Jah-Mir is the producer and host of the landmark poetry night ""Spoken"" and its slam spin-off ""A Slam Called Spout"" with his team Spoken in London. Jah-Mir recently debuted his all-improv poetry show #BeSpoken at the Edinburgh Fringe to critical acclaim. His philosophy of the work is If you must be then, be Spoken.

Our Support Act is Muneera Pilgrim!
Muneera Pilgrim is a Bristol-born international Poet, Cultural Producer, Writer, Broadcaster and co-founder of the Muslim female Spoken Word and Hip-Hop duo Poetic Pilgrimage.
Muneera conducts expressive based, purpose-driven workshops, shares art, guest lectures, host and finds alternative ways to educate and exchange ideas. She regularly contributes to Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2, and she is currently an Associate Artist with The English Touring Theatre where she also contributed to The Othello Project.

As a freelance writer she has written for The Guardian, Amaliah, Huffington Post, The Independent, Al Jazeera Blog, Black Ballard and various other digital and print platforms. She has been featured across the BBC network including BBC News, as well as Sky News, Sky Arts, Al Jazeera, and various other television channels. In 2015 a documentary was commissioned and screened about her group Poetic Pilgrimage Called ‘Hip Hop Hijabis

Muneera holds an MA in Islamic studies where she focused on Black British pathways to spirituality, migration, gender and race. More recently she has completed her second MA in Women’s Studies where she focused on the intersection of faith and spirituality, race, gender, autoethnography and methodologies of empowerment for non-centred people. Her innovation in her work won her The Ann Kaloski-Naylor Award for Adventurous Academic Writing.

She freelances as a Community Engagement and Education Consultant for various organisations and initiatives such as Roehampton University, Bite the Ballot, and The Everyday Muslim Project, where she has been working on heritage projects with the aim of centring, the voices of Muslims. The most recent project led to the first Black British Muslim Archive. If she was asked to describe herself in three words, she would say ‘Just Getting Started’. Muneera colourfully etches a poetic space of dialogue which is accessible regardless of religious and cultural boundaries. Rooted in spirituality she uses communication and art for edification and change.

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Fancy Slamming? Know Your Rules:

Slammers are chosen at random from the sign-up list to perform – spoken word only, no music, no props. Each competitor has 3 minutes from the time they start talking on the mic. After 10 seconds’ grace period, they start losing points (1 point for every 10 seconds!). At the end, they’re given points out of 10 by 5 judges chosen from the audience, while the top and bottom scores are removed to ensure fairness. The slammer gets a score out of 30, and the competition moves on.

The winner of that evening’s competition goes through to the Regional Final (the Bristol one is in June), and the winner (and runner-up) of the Regional Final goes through to the National Final. The winner of the National Final gets crowned H&T National Slam Champion.