Hosted by Queen Sheba – Atlanta’s 2024 Spoken Word Poetry Grammy Nominee, Creative Loafing’s People’s Choice Award Winner for Spoken Word Artist of the Year, as heard on albums by: Robert Glasper, Coriology, a seen on Married to Medicine, Verses & Flow, 106 & Park, the Apollo Theater and the longest running host and event curator at the World Famous Apache Cafe.

For each event, we look for the best poets in our host city to side with Queen Sheba on #TeamPoetry and we look for a roving, guest ‘Captain’ of the emcees + Hip-Hop artists to oppose the poets and see who’s got the best lyrics, wit & stage show!

How it works: Poets will go head-to-head with Emcees in a FRIENDLY, all Peace and all Love “battle”. Queen Sheba will call up one poet and one emcee for each round, they are REQUIRED to hug (or dap or show each other love in some way) to emphasize the bridging of gaps and culture – then the Poet and the Emcee perform one at a time; with the order being alternated each round. Each artist is encouraged to perform their BEST work in a 4-minute time period – at the end of each round, the audience cheers wildly, throws money, stomps on the floor and goes bananas for their favorite performance! The team who wins the best out of 3 rounds wins $1000 in cash on the spot!

YAY! Chicken and Waffles for everyone!

At the end of the show: Audience members are introduced to the best Poetry, Spoken Word & Hip-Hop your city has to offer! Meet us at the end of the show to purchase merch and memorabilia, take pictures with the crew and give us a soundbite for our documentary. We look forward to meeting all of you!