Young Chicago Authors (YCA) has unveiled the dates and schedule for the 16th annual Louder Than a Bomb Festival. As part of the festival, which is happening from February 13 to March 19 across 10 different venues, Public Enemy’s Chuck D and DJ Lord, along with local rapper Vic Mensa are scheduled to appear and perform. Other notable figures, such as Chance the Rapper, singer and educator Jamila Woods and poet Nate Marshall will also be present during the festival.
LTAB is the world’s largest youth poetry slam, where 1,200 teenage poets “from 125 schools across 120 different Chicagoland zip codes” will compete and showcase their talents, according to festival organizers. With 90 events scheduled, students form teams to compete, with the top four groups getting their shot at top spot at the festivals’s finals at Auditorium Theater, in the Loop, on Saturday, March 19.
Chuck D, along with festival founder Kevin Coval and Public Enemy’s DJ Lord, will present the “LTAB Chuck D Lyrical Terrorist Award,” which goes to the youth participant who has made the biggest impact throughout the five-week festival with a poem or poems that focus on social activism.
As part of the festival, D, the iconic Public Enemy founder born Carlton Douglas Ridenhour, who inspired the festival’s name with the group’s 1988 single “Louder Than a Bomb,” will also be honored on Friday, March 18, at Metro Chicago with a “Sweet 16” anniversary benefit party. There, he’ll co-host with Public Enemy’s DJ Lord, be interviewed on stage for what the press materials call a “Hip Hop History Lesson” and then perform. Mensa, the Chicago Roc Nation-signee who is working on his debut studio album “Traffic,” will perform a special half-time show during the festival’s finals on March 19. Considering the star cache of these two artists, this might be the biggest year for LTAB yet.
As Kevin Coval, the poet, YCA artistic director and educator who founded the festival in Chicago in 2001, explained in a press release, “For 16 years this festival has been a platform for young people to use words to transform their lives and impact the world at large for the better.” Michelle T. Boone, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events added, “Not only does it showcase the tremendous talent of Chicago’s young people, it also brings together people from every corner of the city in an environment that fosters education, encourages self-expression and gives audiences insight into the real issues that teens are grappling with every day.”
The festival’s schedule is below.
Preliminary Bouts: Wednesday, Feb. 17, through Saturday, Feb. 20, and Wednesday, Feb. 24, and Saturday, Feb. 27, at Columbia College Chicago.
Semi-Finals: Tuesday, March 15, at the Metro Chicago.
Indy Finals: Thursday, March 17, at the DuSable Museum of African American History.
Sweet 16 Benefit Party (featuring Chuck D and DJ Lord): Friday, March 18, at the Metro Chicago.
Team Finals: Saturday, March 19, 6 p.m. at the Auditorium Theater. Student tickets cost $10 and adult, $20.
More information and tickets can be found here.
[email protected], @joshhterry
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