Lyrispect

Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, poet, actress, writer, host all around creative mind and performer, Nina “Lyrispect” Ball has been writing and performing for most of her life. However, it wasn’t until the Baltimore School for the Arts’ theater grad began attending Temple University in 2001 that she truly cut her teeth on the spoken-word scene. After a sweeping performance at a college showcase, Lyrispect was approached by the venue’s host, Ryva to feature at the nationally famed music/poetry venue, the “Black Lily” which has fostered the careers of a myriad of who’s who among Philadelphia’s most prominent artists. After an overwhelming response, Lyrispect returned multiple times to feature at “The Lily” and has traveled across the continent to feature at a wide range of venues, Institutions and private engagements. In March of 2005, Lyrispect placed 3rd in the nation at the Red Bull Word Clash National Street Poetry Competition. She was then featured in both the “writer’s column” and “featured poet” sections of the Def Poetry Jam Website in April of 2005. In that same year she also received the Sonia Sanchez Women’s Studies award at Temple University where she has completed her degree in both Film and African American Studies. Lyrispect’s performance can only be described as intense and passionate “verbal grace”. Her style, approach, content and delivery have been likened to that of Sanchez, Baraka, Neruda and Saul Williams. She has been a featured performer/speaker at Cornell, Amherst, Howard, Villanova and Temple Universities as well as the “Def Poetry Jam” stage at The National Black Theater Festival in North Carolina. Other notable engagements include the 2006 National Service Learning Convention, the 2006 Kodak Women’s Leadership Conference in Rochester, New York, the 2007 M.L.K. engagement for the U.S. Coast Guard and the 2006 and 2007 Trumpet Awards Black Cultural Explosion in Atlanta, Georgia and Las Vegas, respectively. She has opened for and shared venues with the legendary Last Poets, as well as R&B singers Eric Benet, Raheem DeVaughn, Kenny Lattimore, afro-jazz super group Fertile Ground, Dwele , Hezekiah, Dr. Julius Garvey (son of Marcus Garvey) and most recently Lyrispect hosted and opened for hip-hop renaissance artist, Mos Def. In addition to co-founding the spoken word collective “Daughters of the Word”, Lyrispect’s literary works, including an original one-act “Her-story”, have received awards, recognitions and staged readings from the NAACP, National Black Arts Festival, National Black Theater Festival, Center Stage’s Young Playwright’s Festival, The Black Lily Film and Music Festival, the Tropican Hotel and Casino and many other organizations and institutions. She has been featured multiple times in Writer’s Block Magazine, among many other publications and articles. Lyrispect is a classically trained actress who has appeared in HBO’s “The Corner” and “The Wire” and starred in a myriad of independent films, documentaries, and staged plays. She is the subject of two documentaries “L.Y.R.I.S.P.E.C.T. … Bringing It Off the Page!” and the “Red Bull Word Clash 2005 Behind the Scenes” documentary. Lyrispect is based in Philadelphia and is currently in production for her debut project and book, tentatively titled, “The Spectrum”. She is the newest member, host, and interviewer of “ReelBlack”, a Philadelphia-based production company, and has interviewed the likes of Gabrielle Union, Regina King, Kerry Washington and Idris Elba to name a few. In 2008 Lyrispect was nominated by the Alternative Soul Awards in the categories of “Best Performance Poet” and “Performer of the Year”!