Check it out friends and FAMILIA…ABBA has blessed me with yet another opportunity to INSPIRE others with HIS gift…WHO will GO?
We’re about to release our new video this Thursday, April 28th; in it, we feature the spoken word stylings of slam poet, Michael Perez. The following is a closer look at the artist – a bit about his life and his passions.
Right now, 31 year-old Chicago native and spoken word artist Michael Perez is in Nepal, the eighth country of eleven on his World Race, which he began in September 2010. While growing up in the inner city, amidst gangs and violence, he encountered God in an apartment building; he was 13 years old.
He’d witnessed everything from a homicide to God introducing himself to gang members on the streets at two o’clock in the morning. His parents inspired his passion and love for people, especially “the least of these,” and helped him flourish despite his rough surroundings.
Out of a love for metaphors and the simple way words “colored the paper,” another outlet of creativity and passion was born: spoken word poetry. “Spoken word for me was inspired by my love for the oratory gifts I encountered in others, from Christ using parables to street corner preachers to Veritas forum speakers,” Michael says. “I knew I wasn’t a rapper because I wasn’t an 8 bars type of dude, I wanted to use a different brush to paint colorful words with, so I learned very quickly that it was spoken word that would add hues to my creative pallet [sic].” He performed on stages in the Windy City until the age of 20, when his love for urban culture took him on a faith journey to New York City where he earned degrees in Cross-Cultural Ministries and Business from World Harvest Bible College and King’s College, respectively. Shortly thereafter, Michael landed a job as a youth probation officer in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he spent five years speaking life into the next generation.
His urban background and heart for youth attracted him to the position. “I speak a language youth understand and they’re drawn to because I survived in a world that they’re now fighting to survive in… so we fight together!” he says.
While he reached youth by day, by night he was a member of The Fighting Words Poetry Team. He realized this love for words could be used for ministry when one summer, he and some friends organized events catering to the underground hip hop community; they called it “Qadosh hip hop”, or hip-hop set apart for a holy purpose. This circle of people, consisting of emcees, DJs, b-boys and graffiti artists, influenced his love for words, revealing the power of words to change a generation.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the scripture that speaks of POPS [God] knowing me before I was in my mother’s womb,” Michael says. “To know that ABBA’S relationship with me and everyone else in the world started before conception is to know that HIS love for us began before time had a wrist…that’s FASCINATING.”
And even while overseas, Michael’s been able to marry his way with words with missions. God himself “spoke words to form the Universe, who else could do that?” asks Michael. Inspired by the Creator himself, Michael’s been declaring God’s love to the nations.
