Spliff Richard resides in Brighton, living on a diet of badly paid service jobs, jazz cigarettes and the Guardian. He's been shouting his brand of rapid, rambling, rhyming, red-eyed rhetoric at audiences for 10 years.
He's won a few slams, meaning that on any given night, at least 5 people like what he does. In fact he won the annual local slam title for 4 different years, until they asked him to stop competing. He then annoyed them further by switching teams in the Poets v MCs event witch attracts over 500 people every year to the Concorde2 on Brighton seafront.
Festivals he's avoided paying entry to in exchange for performing include Glastonbury, Secret Garden Party, Small World, Fordham fest, and Tribal Earth.
Iin 2013, he was commissioned to collaborate with a short-film maker on a piece to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther-King's 'I have a dream' speech, as part of a programme of events by national poetry organisation Apples & Snakes. This piece went on to be shortlisted for the O' Bheal international poetry film festival. He is also a regular at the annual commemoration ceremony of the Bronze Woman statue in Stockwell, the first ever statue of a black woman in the UK.
Spliff has shared stages (and often, spliffs) with Johns Cooper Clarke and Hegley, Atilla the Stockbroker, Kate Tempest, Dizraeli, Taylor Mali (not in person, but in a live Oxford/New York slam over the internet), Kat Francois, Brendan Cleary, and many more that his recreationally-depleted memory don't recall.
Despite all of the above making him sound very serious and responsible, he is anything but. In true Brighton cliche style, he spends evenings working in the bar of a music venue, and afternoons working in a veggie cafe, both of which can frequently find him giving hefty discounts on food and drinks to friends or women he's attempting to flirt with. He has a troubling addiction to puns, and has been known to turn down employment on the grounds of refusing to trim his beard. He once stole a bottle of mineral water from a conference for the Crime Reduction Initiative.
Reviews:
"I also particularly liked: Spliff Richard‘s plea to stop reggae music’s increasing anger and homophobia (“whatever happened to one love?”) was heartfelt; with a nice juxtaposition to the multiple defences for ganja." Dana Bubuli
"....his rhythms and amazing flow were exhilarating." Dana Bubuli
"The night’s pantomime villain(or hero) was Spliff Richards." Michael Goodier
"You'll love him. The audience'll love him. He's great" Speech Painter
"Performance poet Spliff Richard has a vast following for his rapid-fire delivery, and gained even more fans during the night." Jessica Marshall McHattie
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