SUAB presented Black Ice, the voice of the “have nots”, along with other spoken-word artists who slipped their lyrical metaphors onto the mic Wednesday, August 22nd in the Harrison Auditorium.

Black Ice, a native of Philadelphia, is the first vocal artist to be signed to Def Jam Records (and he joked the first spoke word artist to leave) and is a Tony Award winning HBO poet.

He rocked the stage with his poetry from off of his new album “The Death of Willie Lynch”.

He is one who has been an artist all his life so adding his craft to words verbally was no challenge. He first started off spitting at his local barber-shop where he worked and from there the word spread of his talented usage of verbal expressions. His poems can be described as the words for the week, but he is simply just telling his “black struggle” in a poetic form that can relate to any race who has been at the bottom of the totem pole.

“I have a voice for the voiceless, I just give my perspective, the black man’s,” he said.

The audience felt every word he threw out and wanted him to recite more of his poetry.

All the performers of the show consisted of Universal Mathematics along with a step-team made up of his students, Phat Gravity Crew, The Collective, Mr. Rozzi, J.Ivy, Torae, and Black Ice.

The audience was receptive to each performer, whether one was freestyling, playing the bongos, spinning on the floor or just plain reciting poetry. Each artist gave it their all and the crowd was feeding off their positive energy.

“The energy was on, 10 thousand percent and very perceptive from the audience” said J.Ivy.

The crowd seemed to respond to him the most when he recited one of his more sensual poems with a twist at the end that gave the crowd a surprised reaction.

He also invited his wife on stage who blew up the mic with her intense singing voice. President Ashley Thweatt of SUAB stated that the program was a success even though it took a year to get Black Ice, but is thankful that everything eventually fell into place.

She also stated that Victor Davidson, vice president of SUAB, also helped out a great deal with getting the local artists to perform for the show. The organization is also thankful for Mrs. Denise Iverson-Payne who is over student activities that made the program possible.