While we’ve been cursing the not-quite-end of winter and hanging on the every last word of both fake and real Rahm Emanuels, 650 teens across Chicago have been rhyming, rapping, reciting and representing, hoping to secure an individual or team spot in the Louder Than a Bomb final slams. With the individual finals tonight and the team finals on Saturday, the festival is coming to a climactic end, and there’s a lot at stake. Especially when the judges include Rhymefest and the executive director of Jane Addams Hull House. more ›

Back in 2000, Kevin Coval and Anna West were spending a lot of time in failing Chicago public schools. They noticed that plenty of the students were plenty smart. The kids had interesting and thought-provoking things to say about their lives and the world around them. Coval and Smith wanted to give these students an opportunity to prove they could succeed. And so, with a mission to give youth a voice that could not be reckoned with, Louder Than a Bomb teen poetry slam was born. more ›

This Sunday, young Chicago authors will flood the Vic Theatre for the ninth-annual Young Chicago Authors poetry slam, Louder than a Bomb. While Flava Flav further exploits the legacy of Public Enemy to VH1’s Celebreality bacchanalia, Young Chicago Authors brings over 650 of the best and brightest writers attending over 50 Chicago area schools and community centers together to spit, flow, and speak the truth in the name of oral storytelling and the spoken word. more ›