‘You cannot control your creativity’ – Sami Rhymes

FROM having her first poem published as a nine year old to taking the stage at Glastonbury this summer, Sami Rhymes is an award-winning performance poet whose powerful lyricism offers inspiration and release.

The poet is performing at this year’s Camden Inspire Festival – taking place in Buck Street and Stucley Place in Camden Town this weekend – and the audience can expect both uplifting words of inspiration and insightful takes on the world through Sami’s eyes.

Sami seeks out words with a built-in rhythm, the tone and metre of her lyrics emerging from her choice of words.

“I like to ensure there is musicality and cadence in my delivery,” she explains, often reciting her pieces from memory.

“I do not write to music but the process for me is one I hear the subject in mind and the rhyme and rhythm come to me before I put it on paper.

“It has to have its own flow. Sometimes I’m seen as a poet who can rap – I can talk to a beat.”

Sami has performed at such renowned Camden venues as The Roundhouse and also worked at the Black Cat factory in Mornington Crescent.

While poetry consumes her, she also earns a living as a freelance creative, putting together numerous arts and literary projects, managing campaigns and projects for others. This adds a layer to her writing, she says.

“I am not a completely full-time poet – but that enables me to broaden my outlook and have ‘lived’ experiences, which is the bedrock to any poet,” she says.

And it means she isn’t tied to a desk when a rhyme emerges from her imagination.

“I am at my most creative when I am commuting or travelling or in the middle of the night. It is very unpredictable. Quitting your full-time job does not always mean you would be more productive. You cannot control your creativity and when it comes to you.”

She competed in a poets vs rappers event for National Poetry Day – and was asked which side she wanted to perform for.

“It was Team Poets for sure,” she says.

“We do not need a beat but after all, what does rap stand for? Rhythm and poetry and that’s what we do.”

Her life as a poet started in primary school. She won a number of writing competitions and saw her work published in young writers magazines.

Secondary school saw her creativity flow into different areas: being introduced to a wide variety of English literature coupled with a growing interest in rap and hip hop, she and her friends would stand in the playground and try to out rhymes to each other.

As a teenager she met and performed with Benjamin Zephaniah, and the poet inspired her to nurture her talent.

“He hosted me on a TV show and I really connected with him,” she recalls. “I loved reading all manner of things, all styles – Zephaniah to Carol Ann Duffy.”

She went to Goldsmiths to study international relations and politics – and while at university her poetry continued to grow.

“I went through some life-changing stages at university,” she recalls.

“I became a practising Muslim. I am not from a religious background and it caused a bit of an uproar for my family, and it led me to write about that journey.”

University also offered the chance to speak out in public.

“I did a lot of performance. I was not a performer but I was happy to share my stories,” she says.

“I wasn’t trying to establish myself as an artist.”

Her growing audience has been bolstered by the success of her debut collection, 20-Somethings, and her magpie’s eye for relatable topics. The collection is split into seven sections and considers milestones in a decade of growth, touching on faith, identity, challenging relationships, mental health awareness, responsibilities and ageing.

“I find the creative process so interesting,” she says.

“I look at themes and see what comes to me. A lot of my poems are political – I speak about what is going on. I write and then read out loud to get the cadence.

“I record myself and play it back. I hear myself and how it sounds – it is a sure way to see if your poetry works.”

• For more information on Camden Inspire, see: https://www.camdeninspire.com/