The powerful, soulful words of poet and spoken word artist Dempstu DJ Simmons Jr will soon be flowing from the pages of his latest compilation.
The cadence of his voice as he rhymes and flows will also fill the air and ear from the Simon Pipe-produced album as soon he has enough money.
DJ Simmons told WEEKEND BUZZ he hopes that the donations receives during the event Do It For Deej being held at The Good Life on the South Coast tomorrow and Sunday, will make up the shortfall and allow him to complete the production started in March this year.
“I’m near the ending of the production of two of my projects – my third book, my third compilation of poetry and my second spoken word album. I have an album that’s being produced by Simon Pipe so I just need some funds to complete those projects and I’m asking for the community if they could donate anything. Anything is greatly appreciated and it would go towards the production of the projects,” said the artist who has made it to the NIFCA finals for the sixth time.
He will be performing his pieces Feel I Ain Know Wuh Gine On and Last Saturday Night.
This body of work which features poems written over the past “three or four years”, comes six years after his second book was published in 2008.
The first was published two years earlier.
DJ Simmons explained that after both books were in circulation he dedicated more time to performing.
“I actually have a small publishing called Dojangles Publishing and I published three other books for writers and poets. When I started to get a little bit more popular I started a company called Iron Sharpen Iron with Adrian Green. I just didn’t have the time to dedicate to publishing as most of my time was taken up with performing and more so developing those open mics,” Simmons said.
The artist noted that he realised that readership was dropping as people were into listening.
“People would buy the album and put them onto their tablets and laptops and cell phones and listen. Not as many people were reading. Most of the people that bought my first two books were visitors to the island. People that were very excited to see Bajan poetry, whether I would be at a book fair or Bridgetown market or if I set up a booth in a public area I would get a lot of attention from visitors to the island and locals that were not necessarily poetry lovers but just wanted to support something that a young Barbadian entrepreneur was doing,” he said.
Patrons attending the two-day event are in for a treat as Simmons’ friends will be sharing the spotlight.
“I asked some friends of mine to come and help me to make the event a successful one. Tomorrow I’m going to be there from noon until 11 p.m. Between the hours of 8 p.m., to 11 p.m. there will be live performances from my friends hanging out, just having a real free vibe.
“It’s really going to be like a jam session, a control frenzy of art with lots of artistes, different musicians, poets, saxophonists in one place performing, sharing and celebrating themselves and supporting me.
“On the Sunday from 5 in the evening, me and my girlfriend Keisha Empresszingha Griffith, we’re going to be conducting some story telling sessions for the whole family.
“Storytelling is something that I don’t really see a lot of in Barbados anymore and I’m a really big fan. I used to do storytelling for children for the NCF a couple years ago at the library, I really enjoyed that,” Simmons.
He promised it will be a great event for the entire family. (Green Bananas Media)
