This week on the podcast it’s an NYU affair with a side of Columbia University, Harvard University and UCLA. I first met my guest as fellow New York University students/alumni in the late 1990’s, at a time when slam poetry was beginning to reaching global audiences with influences from hip hop music and other activist movements. Fast foward after more than 20 years to earlier this spring when our paths crossed again at an event hosted by fellow Glocal Citizen and Director of NYU Accra, Chiké Frankie Edozien - The Labone Dialogues.

Bryonn is a poet, actor, prison activist, playwright, scholar, author, hip hop artist and professor of African American Studies, Theater, Film & Television, and World Arts & Cultures in the School of the Arts and the School of Law at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Playing over 40 characters, his one-man show, LYRICS FROM LOCKDOWN, won “Best Solo Performance” from the LA Weekly and the NAACP. Executive produced by the late and great, Harry Belafonte, the show tells stories of wrongful incarceration through spoken word poetry, hip hop theater, calypso, comedy and classical music. He founded the Prison Education Program at UCLA in 2015 and in 2019, the program and his performances at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts were featured on the debut episode of LA Stories, which won an Emmy Award.

His work has been featured on a diverse range of stages including the Apollo Theater, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Public Theater (NYC), National Black Theatre (Harlem), NJ PAC, The Actor’s Gang Theater (Culver City), Los Angeles Theater Center (LATC), Festival de Liege (Belgium), M-1 Theater Festival (Singapore), Universidad de las Americas (Mexico) and Muteesa Royal University (Uganda), Rikers Island (New York), Marion Prison (Ohio), TEDX at Ironwood State Prison and Sing Sing Prison.

He has performed at over 250 colleges and prisons in the U.S., Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. And soon in Ghana!

Where to find Bryonn?
https://www.bryonn.com
On LinkedIn
On Instagram

What’s Bryonn reading?
A Survey of Muhammad Ali Biographies

What’s Bryonn watching?
Concerning Violence

What’s Bryonn listening to?
Blues Women

Other topics of interest:
What is a Calypsonian
About Veteran Black Panther Jamal Joseph
About Akuse Prison in Ghana
90’s music roll-call - The Fu-Schnickens, Digital Underground, Tupac Shakur
About Pedro Noguera
About Delroy Lindo
Sinners the film
About Michael A. Jordan

Special Guest: Bryonn Bain.

After spending the new year chasing [Aurora Borealis aka the Northern Lights](linkhttps://www.space.com/15139-northern-lights-auroras-earth-facts-sdcmp.html) in the North of Ireland and communing with friends and family there and in the UK, I’m back in NYC grounding and self-caring for a bit. The not so great news is that I just missed seeing the Northern Lights live, but now I’m that much more prepared for the next time. The great news is that I was able to catch up with this week’s guest, Ghanaian actor, producer and casting director, Agbeko “Bex” Mortty before he heads to the Miami International Science Fiction Film Festival representing Ghana with The B.A.T.U. Project: ADAM THE FIRST, Ghana’s first feature length science fiction film. He has stared in films and series like the Tribeca Film Festival award winning film Children of the Mountain, Shampaign, Men Don’t Cry, The Cursed Ones, and the world No. 1 Netflix Original Sci-Fi TV series AWAY, staring Hilary Swank and Josh Charles. His production titles include Children of the Mountain, Amerikafuo and The B.A.T.U Project: ADAM THE FIRST. As casting director his projects include FREETOWN, PARADISE and Children of the Mountain.
In addition, he is also an IT consultant and an enstooled chief in Ghana’s Volta Region, which Bex tells us all about in this in depth tour of his experiences as a returnee.

Where to find Bex?
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook
On YouTube

What’s Bex reading?
Producing Independent Feature Films That Make Money by Rick Jenkins

Other topics of Interest?
About Tamale, the Dagomba People and Dagbani language
The Yaa Centre in London
About Gbledi, in Hohoe, Volta Region Ghana
Ghana Inaugurates, John Dramani Mahama as President
Africa Cinema Summit
About Filmmaker M. Sayibu
About Silver Star Tower, Accra and their Corporate Run Ghana Initiative
Where did my Aurora chasing take me in Ireland?

Special Guest: Agbeko “Bex” Mortty.