Bryonn Bain(III)
Bryonn Bain is Brooklyn's own prison activist, actor, author, hip hop theater innovator, and spoken word poetry champion. His internationally acclaimed multimedia production Lyrics From Lockdown had its world premiere at Harlem's National Black Theatre (executive produced by Gina and Harry Belafonte), has sold-out on three continents, been featured at The Apollo Theater, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the Grammy Museum, and won "Best Solo Performance" in 2018 for its run at The Actor's Gang Theater in Los Angeles.
Wrongfully incarcerated in his second year at Harvard Law School, Bain was featured on 60 Minutes after writing "Walking While Black: The Bill of Rights for Black Men" - which received the largest reader response Village Voice history. Described by Cornel West as an artist who "...speaks his truth with a power we desperately need to hear," his television and film work has earned critical acclaim, from his award winning BET talk show My Two Cents, to an Emmy nomination for "BaaadDDD Sonia Sanchez."
The author of The New York Times celebrated The Prophet Returns: A Hip Hop Generation Remix of a Classic, Bain's second book, The Ugly Side of Beautiful: Rethinking Race and Prisons in America is published by Third World Press with a foreword by Mumia Abu-Jamal and introduction by Lani Guinier. His latest book, Fish & Bread/Pescado y Pan, is a bilingual, hip hop-inspired children's book, illustrated by his teen son and pre-teen godson, published by Brown Girls Books.
Founding director of the Prison Education Program at UCLA, Bain's iconoclastic music, poetry, videos and TED Talks are available on Life After Lockdown: The Digital Mixtape, executive produced by legendary hip hop DJ Kool Herc, and Lyrics From Lockdown: The Lost Tapes - featuring original music and verse now featured in his stage production. Bringing art, activism and education into prisons for nearly three decades, his work and courses on hip hop, theater, spoken word poetry, police and the prison crisis have impacted children women and men incarcerated in 25 states across the U.S., and prisons from Uganda to the U.K.
Wrongfully incarcerated in his second year at Harvard Law School, Bain was featured on 60 Minutes after writing "Walking While Black: The Bill of Rights for Black Men" - which received the largest reader response Village Voice history. Described by Cornel West as an artist who "...speaks his truth with a power we desperately need to hear," his television and film work has earned critical acclaim, from his award winning BET talk show My Two Cents, to an Emmy nomination for "BaaadDDD Sonia Sanchez."
The author of The New York Times celebrated The Prophet Returns: A Hip Hop Generation Remix of a Classic, Bain's second book, The Ugly Side of Beautiful: Rethinking Race and Prisons in America is published by Third World Press with a foreword by Mumia Abu-Jamal and introduction by Lani Guinier. His latest book, Fish & Bread/Pescado y Pan, is a bilingual, hip hop-inspired children's book, illustrated by his teen son and pre-teen godson, published by Brown Girls Books.
Founding director of the Prison Education Program at UCLA, Bain's iconoclastic music, poetry, videos and TED Talks are available on Life After Lockdown: The Digital Mixtape, executive produced by legendary hip hop DJ Kool Herc, and Lyrics From Lockdown: The Lost Tapes - featuring original music and verse now featured in his stage production. Bringing art, activism and education into prisons for nearly three decades, his work and courses on hip hop, theater, spoken word poetry, police and the prison crisis have impacted children women and men incarcerated in 25 states across the U.S., and prisons from Uganda to the U.K.
