Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a National Poetry Slam champion, Broadway veteran, GOLDIE award winner, and inaugural recipient of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship which annually recognizes 50 of the country's "greatest living artists." Smithsonian Magazine named him, in 2007, one of the Top Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences.

Originally from New York City and currently living in Oakland, California, this acclaimed performer and arts activist has toured nationally and internationally including a performance at the 1st International Spoken Word Festival in Tokyo and in Santiago de Cuba where he joined the legendary Katherine Dunham as a part of the CubaNola Collective.

Bamuthi entered the world of literary performance after crossing the sands of “traditional” theater, most notably on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning "The Tap Dance Kid" and "Stand-Up Tragedy."

His most recent work, the break/s has been acclaimed as a new level of hip-hop theatre. A mixtape for the stage, the break/s is a multimedia infused theatrical journey and international travel diary across planet hip-hop, based on Can’t Stop Won’t Stop by Jeff Chang. Bamuthi developed this piece while completing the prestigious Arts Institute Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and it premiered at the Humana Festival of New American Plays

In 2007, Bamuthi's work, Scourge, was presented internationally in Belgium, Italy and Netherlands. The performance reflects on the plight of Haiti in the post-colonial New World and was developed while Bamuthi was a Phillis Wattis Artist-in-Residence at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Collaborators for Scourge include renowned choreographer Rennie Harris, Grammy-nominated composer John Santos, dramaturg Roberta Uno, and director Kamilah Forbes of the New York City Hip Hop Theater Festival.

His other evening-length works include Word Becomes Flesh, De/Cipher and No Man's Land. Bamuthi’s works, which have been performed on stages from New York's Lincoln Center to the Contemporary Theater in Seattle, have been described as everything from “electrifying” (The Houston Chronicle), to “ever-elegant” (The Washington Post) and has compelled The Seattle Times to name him their “cutting edge performer of the year” for 2003. In their review of Word Becomes Flesh, the New York Times declared his work to be “eloquent...seamless...and remarkable.”

Bamuthi's performance schedule has carried him from dance apprenticeships in Senegal to teaching fellowships in Bosnia. His proudest work has been with the organization Youth Speaks where he is Artistic Director and curator of  the Living Word Festival for Literary Arts. He recently served as an IDA resident artist in Stanford University's Drama Department, teaching Spoken Word and Community Action.

Since beginning a career in performance poetry in 1998, Bamuthi has been San Francisco's Poetry Grand Slam winner three times, winner of the 1999 National Poetry Slam with Team San Francisco, and founded “Second Sundays,” the nation's first monthly spoken word gathering to generate audiences of 500+. His local work earned him a GOLDIE award from the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Nationally, has been a featured lecturer and performance artist at over one hundred colleges and universities including UC Berkeley, NYU, Brown University, the University of Michigan, Bates College, Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

He has shared the stage with the current stars of the Spoken Word and music scene including Ben Harper, De La Soul, The Roots, Bonnie Raitt, Saul Williams, Cody Chestnutt, Beau Sia, Blackalicious, Will Power, Jill Scott, Mos Def, Sarah Jones, Sonia Sanchez, Gil Scott Heron, The Last Poets, Amiri Baraka, Roger Bonair-Agard, Ishle Yi Park, Danny Hoch and many others.

Bamuthi has been a featured artist on Russell Simmons' Def Poetry on HBO and was the Artistic Director of the 7-part HBO documentary Russell Simmons presents Brave New Voices.

In addition, Bamuthi's released a spoken word CD, “Seeking,” worked with Linkin Park's Joe Hahn for MTV, and performs on the CD “185 Progress Drive” (Alternative Tentacles Records: 2000) with Assata Shakur, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Bob Marley, Michael Franti, I was Born with Two Tongues and other hip hop and spoken word artists.

Bamuthi’s critical writing is currently featured in Jeff Chang’s Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop. His first non-fiction book, Line Breaks: A Source Guide to Hip Hop Theater, is forthcoming The University of Wisconsin Press.