Lu Aya
Lu Aya (he/they/we) is a Co-founder of www.thepeacepoets.com, a Hip Hop and Spoken Word crew from The Bronx that has made an indelible mark on the social movements of our times by composing and leading songs sung around the world for justice and liberation.
The Peace Poets are so humbled and honored to support the strategic art of collective singing in protest and direct action.
Lu is a father, son, brother, cousin, nephew, poet, student, educator, emcee, musician, facilitator, freedom singer, friend and cultural worker. He sees all of these roles as sacred spaces to listen, love and learn more and more, day by day, how to embody healing. He believes that the foundation of working for liberation is always here and now with all our relations.
In this spirit, he has woven together the fertile fields of organizing, human rights, music and public health by designing programs and facilitating community building workshops for peace and justice with his own family and with so many amazing relatives in The Bronx, Ecuador, Colombia, Haiti, Mexico, France, Sudan, Kenya, Niger, Liberia, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Afghanistan, India, Nepal and across Turtle Island.
Having spent years as an artist and organizer, he now focuses on infusing music and spoken word into our movements by offering training on how to compose and lead poignant poetic accessible songs. We are also a trainer with The Wildfire Project and a community member of Canticle Farm in Oakland.
Finally, we continue to work online at the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center where we has been teaching and learning poetry since 2008 with the teenagers in our neighborhood.