SPOKKEN BIO

The road for this neo-spoken word artist has been a long, hard travelled one. Born Richard Aundrae Wesley August 3rd 1975 in Mandeville, Jamaica. West Indies he was left with relatives while his mother, only 17, came to Canada for a better life. By the age of 2 he came to Canada and lived in one of the country’s biggest city’s Toronto, in the borough of Scarborough is where he and his single young mother eventually relocated. Richard was forced to adapt and grow quickly within the concrete jungle of the city, the dangers of his surroundings could not be sheltered by his mother although she tried to do so very strictly, still he was often alone and being the only child, his imagination and creative thoughts came at a very, very young age. Richard would write stories and would record comedy skits on tape alone, in school short story assignments usually turned out to be a bit too long but extremely creative and original, still there was a need for acceptance and Richard was easily lured to the bad side of the track and got in trouble often, his mother took notice to the city full of trouble and so after 13 years of living in the city he called home in 1991 by the age of 15, due to the excessive violence that had started to run rampid in the city, Richard was forced to move to Newmarket, Ontario. The difference in surroundings was very difficult for the big city kid and soon his mother was unable to handle his rebellious ways. He was sent to Hamilton, Ontario 7 months later to live with his Aunt and her 2 children and husband. This is where Richard discovered not just his gift but his love for writing songs, and poetry and began doing so on a daily basis using this gift as an outlet for the many stresses in life. Richard became comfortable in the city of Hamilton, he began to have dreams of becoming a singer, or songwriter those dreams sidetracked however when at the age of 18 he became a father and had to face the responsibility of fatherhood at that young age, graduating after the birth of his daughter, he began working but was lured into the fast money of the street hustle and began to sell drugs all that came to a crashing halt in 1999 when he was arrested and charged with trafficking after that it was a downward spiral, due to many inner emotional issues Richard succumbed to the same narcotic he was at one time trafficking a victim to the trappings of life, a trap that is a major epidemic with most every urban community in the world. It was 2004 when the inner battle was won, it was then Richard realized that even in the haze of those years he continued to write his poetry and songs. With the help of a young man he met Chris boullier, who was interested in making music, Richard recorded his first poem in 2006 that poem was called “Blackness” a poem he had wrote when he was 19 about the issues he had to endure from his own family about his skin tone. The end result was incredible to not just the two, but most everyone that heard the poem really enjoyed it. The creative spark was rekindled with that recording and others followed , Richard was not singing, nor was he rapping over the instrumental backdrops he simply was” reciting his writings” with a certain cadence that sounds like he was speaking on beat, and so SPOKKEN was created. Since his first recording in 2006 SPOKKEN has gone on to record over 122 poems and has collaborated with artists like Chris Jackson( “KISSES BELOW THE WAIST” 2007 & “SQWEAKS OF THE BED” 2007) Jachin James( “I SHOULDN'T FEEL FOR YOU LIKE THIS REMIX” 2008) His first album was done independently released in 2006 and done totally by himself ,selling very well, still it was a personal test done to see if others would appreciated a style he has titled NEO-SPOKEN WORD. With that goal accomplished spoken is hard at work to bring his NEO-SPOKEN WORD REVOLUTION to the world.
Welcome to the world of SPOKKEN.