Malik Yusef

Born and raised on the south side of Chicago, Malik Yusef (professionally known as "The WordSmyth") the country’s premier spoken word musician. This Chicagoan has been honing is craft for nearly a decade, taking poetry to unimaginable heights.

Malik got his first big break when Ted Witcher, the Director of the hit movie "Love Jones", recognized his unique style of poetry and hired Malik to coach Larenz Tate. No stranger to the small screen either, Malik Yusef has appeared on the super station WGN’s Morning News Show, ABC Worldwide News, BET’s Rap City (twice), Judge Hatchett, MTV Hip Hop Week, VH1 and the CBS game show "Know Your Heritage". To top off his Television credits Malik Yusef performed "I Spit" that aired on HBO’s "Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry". His poetry has also been featured on promotional compilations for ASCAP, Sprite, Coca-Cola, Nike and multiple underground mix tapes across the country. You can also hear his unique style on the Soundtracks of Coach Carter as well as Baby’s Daddy with Chicago natives Twista, Carl Thomas, Marvo and Juice.

Malik's work has been immortalized on several albums. He was featured with Method man on "Ghetto B.I.", Channel Lives album "Armaghetto" (Flava Unit Records). His classic anthem about Chicago entitled "My City" was featured on Common’s Gold album "One Day It Will All Make Sense". Carl Thomas, another fellow Chicagoan, featured Malik on "Trouble Don’t Last" for his debut multi-platinum album "Emotional" and then again on his sophomore project, “Rebound” (Bad Boy Entertainment). While touring with Carl Thomas, Malik developed a relationship with jazz saxophonist Mike Phillips (Hidden Beach). This collaboration created a poetic jazz masterpiece called "This Is Not A Game", which was selected by Michael Jordan himself to be on the CD-Rom that was distributed with the Red Jordan 17, released August 1, 2002. He has also featured on other fellow Chi-town artist albums which include Kanye West “Late Registration” (Sony), Rhymefest’s “Blue Collar” (J Records), Shawnna “Block Music”(Def Jam/DTP), Belo ”The Truth”(Legion Records), Do Or Die “DOD” (Legion/Warner), and in Europe on Shawn Emmanuel’s (EMI) single and video.

Malik has had great success and recognition over the years. Malik has been featured in several national and international publications including but not limited to Ebony Magazine, XXL, The Source, Vibe and Rolling Out Magazine. He has won honors as Truth Awards “Best Poet” 2001 thru 2005 consecutively. He was named “Best Poet” at the Chicago Music Awards 2002 through 2006 consecutively. For his appearance on HBO’s Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry, he garnered an Emmy in 2004 and a Peabody in 2005. Malik was also a MTV Europe Top 100 Live Concepts award winner. But the most celebrated feature is his Grammy award winning body of work “Crack Music” on Kanye West’s album “Late Registration”.

Malik’s critically acclaimed debut album "Malik Yusef presents The Great Chicago Fire Cold Day In Hell" (Zoawe/Universal) released January 2003 was a great success. The first single "Get Ready" featured Carl Thomas and continues to be one of the most requested songs on Chicago’s urban radio stations. The album includes production from Kanye West, Xtreme, DuPee’ Productions, No I.D. and Kay Fingers and features fellow Chicago artist Chantay Savage, Common, Public Announcement, Bigg Nastee’ and K. Foxx.

Malik Yusef couldn’t be happier. "It’s been a long time coming," he laughs. Yusef is glad that urban poetry is coming back to the spotlight. "Spoken word is a treasured art form that mirrors ourselves, " says Malik, " people need to express themselves to see themselves." And that’s what The Wordsmyth Malik Yusef has done for all to see.