Malachi Byrd, a proud Washington D.C. native and D.C.’s inaugural Youth Poet Laureate, is a twenty one year-old junior at Princeton University. The captain and co-founder of ContraVerse, his high school slam team, Malachi led the team to the 2014 Louder Than a Bomb – DMV title. He also is a 2-time member of the DC Youth Poetry Slam Team, including the 2014 winners of the Brave New Voices International Poetry Festival. A rapper, poet, scholar, and activist, Malachi has won numerous awards and scholarships, and has performed on television (including two episodes of Lexus Verses and Flow), radio, at protests on the national mall, the Kennedy Center, the White House, and South Africa. He is the self-proclaimed first Senator of Washington D.C., (Vote Byrd 2032) and will use his education to help tackle problems of inequality and inequity in urban environments. An African-American Studies major and Creative Writing minor, Malachi uses his poetry as introspection, self-discovery, self-critique, and activism.

About Crowning Too Early

Crowning Too Early (2017) is a narrative commentary on the erasure of Black childhood. For the young adults that were not afforded the opportunity to be children; for the princes and princesses that were crowned too early. Navigating difficulties with institutional racism, addiction, inadequacy, and mental health, Malachi takes us on the tragic yet filling journey of the bright-eyed Brown boy becoming the man of the house. A step evolved from the juxtaposition of poverty and privilege in Which Picture Would They Use? (2015), C.T.E. embraces the two years of Princeton University under his belt and lends us the eyes of a boy working overtime to align his experiences with his theories and unapologetically stumbling towards his best self.