kid anansi
So excited to announce the signing of Jamal Hassan, aka Kid Anansi!
A performing poet, a comedian, a playwright, it is hard to pin him down with all the talent contained within this young man, but I truly feel that divine providence led me to Jamal, because on my first night in London on July 2, 2019, I decided to go to a poetry slam.. I had never BEEN to a slam and didn't even know what it was. As it turned out, I was essentially forced to be a judge, and of course the show runner had no idea I worked with words for a living. For me the clear standout of the night was Kid Anansi, and as I had just begun on social media I felt I had to post about him. He was a bit suspicious of this strange American woman who approached him after the show to get his info, which at the time was simply an Instagram handle, and not easy to find.
But I did the post, he thanked me, and we started a sporadic DM conversation. Then one day he posted a poem that I resonated with so strongly that I felt I REALLY wanted to write a song to it - something, by the way, I had never done before, write a song with someone else's words. He of course wanted to know what that meant, and after explaining it, our DM's grew more frequent. Until one day he asked me a question that I felt demanded more than a DM. This had to be a conversation. Thus started an amazing friendship with many conversations over many hours for the last two years. And this was all before Aquamarine as an actual LABEL was not even a glint in my eye!
But when I did finally do the work to create this label as an actual business, I knew I wanted Jamal on it. Lucky for me, he said yes.
WEBSITE: https://kidanansi.bandzoogle.com/