Levi Tafari was born in Liverpool. Levi acceded into two cultures, because their parents were Jamaicans. In his teenage years was influenced by the city’s sounds, impacting in his art form.
Later he entered in the world of catering as a profession. To satisfy his artistic urge, he was seeking a medium of expression. He left the trade he loved for the art that he loved more.
He was then and still is a member of the Rastafarian movement. They receive a lot of negative press because there were rumors about how hard is in Liverpool 8 the life. With support he started to take his poetry further afield, he began to write about universal themes, meaning that the message wasn’t only for British people, increasing his performances to other audience.
He works hard in oral traditions. Levi believes that poetry shouldn’t stay on a page, and the tongue was an important instrument. He considers himself as an Urban Griot, the traditional consciousness raiser, storyteller, announcer and political agitator. His work is rhythmic and lyrical, with a move of reggae and very humorous. In the past was influenced by soul and funk too. Levi spent two seasons as poet in the royal Liverpool orchestra.
Levi has three collections of his poetry published and he has recorded poetry in cassette.
Levi has appeared in television and in 1992 he played in “grange Hill”. In 1997 the BBC made a documentary that followed Levi on his trip to Ethiopia, and more recently he has featured in other programmes.
An important element of Levi’s work is going to schools, universities and prisons fomenting creative writing, believing that it will inspire a new generations of poets. Through some projects and various works, Levi was successful in this.
In 2001 Levi toured a recycled band, with a highly successful. His new collection of poems experiments with new sounds. Now Levi is working on the inclusion, diversity in education, and that covers 11 countries.
