“d’bi is a passionate word-warrior with originality and ingenuity to match her creative courage.  In rivers... and other blackness... between us, she gushes freely, blending contemporary currents with ancestral resonance to create a daring collection that demands attention. As it bends boundaries and defies definitions, d’bi’s poetry courses along its own path. Surging and swirling, sometimes overflowing the banks, her lines are both delightful and disturbing. On the outside you see a book covered and bound, but on each page there’s raw power and boundless revelation.”

 

—Blakka Ellis

 

d’bi.young.anitafrika is a visionary who believes in life, love, and revolushun. An award-winning dub poet, actor, and playwright, d’bi has written, published, and performed internationally. She is also the author of the dub-poetry collection art on black (Women’s Press, 2006) and the Dora Award–winning play blood.claat. She regularly teaches and mentors younger performance artists and is currently completing the third play in her three faces of mudgu sankofa trilogy, a dub opera entitled word! sound! powah! d’bi resides in Toronto, Canada, and Kingston, Jamaica, with her son, moon.

“d’bi is an electric wire and a grounded soul
Her words move and dance and sing and chant
They fly and then they return to reflect—
With her words and her silence
d’bi ignites the woman story
Alive, with beads and shells
And bells and bones—
d’bi inspires earth-song”

—Sheri-D Wilson, Poet and Artistic Director, Calgary International Spoken Word Festival

"Since [art on black], anitafrika has elaborated three additional elements - urgency, sacredness, and integrity - which infuse and inform her own practice of dub. These additional elements signal the arrival of the visionary poetics found in rivers ... and other blackness ... between us, a book that confronts systemic racism in Toronto, the ongoing global effects of colonialism and imperialism, and pursues a vision of a just future."
— T. L. Cowan, Canadian Literature

Art On Black
40 Dayz
Empress Illuminated Verses
Old Friend, We Made This For You

Watch a video of d’bi speaking about themes and inspirations of rivers…and other blackness…between us (via The Drive Is Alive)