Pain, Poetry and a Jamaican Born Nigerian Princess.

Can Art Save Us?

Princess Arinola Adegbite a.k.a. P. A. Bitez is a British Jamaican-born Nigerian poet, she’s a spoken word artist, a songwriter and filmmaker whose artistic expression is described as social activism and spiritual healing. At 16, she published her debut poetry collection 'Soft Tortures.' At 17, she won Slambassadors, a national poetry competition and by 2020, she was one of six finalists of the BBC Words First talent scheme, searching for the Best Spoken Word Poets in the UK. In 2021 she was awarded Manchester Creative of The Year at The Manchester Culture Awards and she has won a number of successful commissions too. Currently Princess Arinola, is a member of Young Identity, Manchester’s Premier Spoken Word Collective and in early 2023, we can look forward to her Afrofuturistic EP Vintage Destiny. We talk about self-actualisation and dysmorphia, poetry defined by proximity to blackness, page poets and spoken word artists, editing versus erasure, love and loss and whether Shakespeare and Tupac were the same.

If you're lucky enough to be in Manchester (UK), Saturday, 18th March, 2023, head to Manchester Central Library from Midday to 2pm. FREE, Princess Arinola will be part of a live performance, 'Rehearsal Methods,' by Jade Montserrat. We support #free and #accessforall at Can Art Save Us?

Series Audio Editor - Courtesy of Joey Quan.

Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb

Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://www.canartsaveus.com

Discover Princess Arinola here 'On the Team': https://www.youngidentity.org/