Ain't I'm Clean

Scz (pronounced seize) is part of North African & Jewish diasporas. They are a Louisville based educator, scholar, poet, deejay, cultural producer & multimedia artist whose work focuses on decolonization, Hip Hop, migration, identity & belonging. As an educator, they use Critical Hip Hop & emancipatory pedagogies to develop curriculum that is youth-centered, participatory and grounded in experiential knowledge. They received their MA from the University of East London, where they developed the project "Global Flows:"  Scz is a co-funder of Rhythm Science Sounds &  Education Director for Art Thrust,. As a deejay, Scz practices sonic weaving to create audio narratives, focusing on the sonics of space, the way sound migrates, the distance between sounds, and how sound is coded and blended to communicate knowledge to bodies in space. As a poet, their poetics reflect themes of (dis)placement, brownness, southernness, queer love, & transgression. They are part of the poetry and art collective Mother Tongue Techniques. They believe that as queer, diasporic persons of color, cultural production is the space where we can resist the violence of marginalization and begin to not only imagine decolonial relationships but actively put them into practice.

Their work has been featured on Decolonization.org, Y'all Come Back: Stories of Queer Southern Migriation (as part of the National Queer Arts Festival, They participated in the Southern Girls Conference giving the Presentation: The Role of the Artist as Cultural Producer, Workshop: Sonic Poetry: Deejaying Resistance-decolonial strategies, and Workshop: Reclaiming Public Space Through Graffiti. They have taught workshops and collaborated with Louisville Youth Poets, Women in Transition, Bluegrass Technical and Community College, Trans Latinx justice workers, Kentucky Dream Coalition/Immigrants Fights For Rights and Equality, Kentucky Alliance against Racism and Political Repression, and Louisville Showing up for Racial Justice on topics of media justice, decolonization and cultural organizing.