Poet

Suli Breaks

Central to the inspiration that keeps Whispermaze ticking over, and along, is interacting with artists who really do make a difference, with their words, with their intent, and undoubtedly with their impact. Suli Breaks stands as an individual who embraces such inspiration, and we are talking about the type of inspiration that signifies humankind, an individual who adds significance to the power of the spoken word. And the objective is quite simple; to impact, to educate, to enlighten, these few elements of which Suli Breaks brings with every piece he writes, and every performance he gives. On his poetic journey, rendering convention null and void, and leaving conformity in the wake of everything new and relevant to today, Suli Break’s accomplishments include a second place award as a speaker in Mastermind Talks, featured in the Huffington Post, Washington Post, the Guardian, The Independent and numerous other popular youth blogs and sites such as Worldstarhiphop and Upworthy.com. Suli Breaks is indeed an asset to his art, a talent to be inspired by one to aspire to. Whispermaze welcomes, Suli Breaks.

Why Poetry?

It’s just my medium, everybody has something of which they excel at, and I guess when I chose poetry as a medium, as an opinionated person, as a creative person I felt it was a perfect combination, and I found that the two worked for me from an early age, and I stuck with it as opposed to other mediums, I think you should always do what you’re passionate about, and for me poetry incited a passion.

Can you remember the first time you decided on; yeah, it’s going to be poetry and this is the way I’m going to do it?

Yeah, in 2009, I performed at an event for my university, and it just went down so well I said yeah; there’s something in this, and I graduated and after that I said; ‘you know what’, let’s see how far this can go, years later here I am.

Is there a general message in your work today, as opposed to when you started?

Yes, I guess when I first started a lot of it was very much light hearted, back then, younger even it was all about doing things differently, and its stay consistent, from when I first started, I guess as I’ve matured the message as matured with me, because back then a lot of it was only relatable in a certain context to a certain type of people, and as I’ve grown it’s still relatable to a certain people, only difference now is as I’ve grown my work has taken on different subjects, as opposed to when I first started.

With regards to the current climate today; i.e. the world today, is there a message in your poetry that responds to that?

My main message, my poetry in response to that, there’s a lot of pre-existing institutions, and ideas you’re forced to conform to, my message is that conformity is not a necessity anymore, especially in this connective age between people, we don’t need to conform to particular conventions, today is about breaking the stereotypes, breaking the dogma, breaking the pre-existing ideas and assumptions that will be made about things.

Looking at one of your pieces, in particular; ‘Why I Hate School But Love Education’, how did that piece of work come about?

A large amount of my experience centres around education, I was in school for twelve years, and that’s almost half of my life to date, so I guess, as an artist, a lot of my understanding of the world came from being in that institution, and a lot of the things that’s wrong with that institution is something I wanted to highlight, and though that piece stands out , in most of my pieces this subject has always been one of those reoccurring themes, and the perception has always been; ‘he’s passionate about education’, more so its relationship with today’s youth, and for good reason.

And what has the reaction been towards your work, what do you feel is the general feeling towards your work?

A lot of people say; ‘oh I don’t like it’, and because they come from a different generation, or they come from different parts of the world and their understanding of the subject is completely different from how you, or I might perceive it to be. And for me, education is more a first world problem, where it’s accessible and by right, where for that child education is all they have.

You’re currently working on your album, how is that coming along?

I have actually finished it, I plan to drop it in December, and I’m releasing the first video from it on October 18th, probably before this interview gets published.

And with regards to the album, what is your most notable achievement to date?

That would be the opportunity to travel around the world in 80 days, and the inspiration behind that was for me to gain a more worldly perspective, like I said education tends to be a first world problem, a lot of work was integrated into my understanding of this first world, and living in London, when I travelled around the world, and hopefully it will become evident in this album, it’s the broad perspective that comes to light, things I never understood as well or things that didn’t previously interest me as much as they do, or did when I travelled. And it’s like; as a young kid growing up in London, and travelling as I did I found common things that relate, on a global scale, to what growing up in London often entails.

Is there anybody on the circuit whom you’d like to work with?

Me and George did something together a while back, that being George the Poet, I’d like to work with him again, I’d like to work with Kate Tempest, she’s great, and those are probably the only two in London who I’d like to work with.

And what’s the current objective for Suli Breaks?

To release the spoken word album, get that out the way, that will provide the foundation for the video content I’ll be releasing, and then hopefully tour around the world, the latter two providing the material to do so, we’ll see how that goes.

Well Suli, it’s been an absolute pleasure, not only is your work truly appreciated, and respected, fundamentally it’s needed, and for that I salute you, with both hands. Thank you.

The pleasure was all mines, and thank you.