SCRUFFMOUTH Kevan Anthony Cameron

ARTIST STATEMENT          SCRUFFMOUTH          Kevan Anthony Cameron

Kevan Anthony Cameron, known as Scruffmouth is a poet, performer, producer and creator with the unique ability to compose epic tales embedded in ancient indigenous knowledge. 

Scruffmouth spits poetic parables that precede paradigm-shifting thought processes.  Inspired by the offerings of his ancestors in music, media arts, visual arts, sports, politics, literature, and orature.  Scruffmouth infuses his poems with philosophical arguments and historiographical perspectives to engage with the audience and stimulate their imagination. Kevan is a versatile creator of spoken word—sometimes with music, but always with the intrinsic rhythm of a Canadian-Jamaican dub poet. 

His practice involves cultural interpretation and metaphysical investigation of myth, folklore and creation narratives into compelling, ‘edutaining’ pieces of spoken dub poetics. Scruffmouth works with themes of black history, geopolitics and afro futurism in his art.

Scruffmouth maintains a nomadic poetic process and travels with a photographic memory with thousands of words to be annotated.  If Scruffmouth flows like rivers across continents, then the art of the page and stage are familiar tributaries. Scruffmouth is an oral traditionalist in the guise of rap artist, and rap, is rhythm and poetry.

        

Scruffmouth creates poetry as a form of original expression to literally give voice to the superhero that overcame struggle and now seeks to celebrate ancestral heritage and educate the youth.  He is an experienced facilitator of spoken word poetry workshops designed to encourage performativity, identity and truth in writing. Kevan’s projects: Hogan’s Alley Poetry Festival (celebrating heritage, community and cultural space through spoken word) and Spoken Notebook (a graphic dub poetry chapbook) were graciously supported by Canada Council for the Arts.

Scruffmouth is gifted with an ability to produce impactful art, whether spoken or written, it plays two sports as it intersects with collaborative new media art forms and stands alone in literary merit.   

BIOGRAPHY                SCRUFFMOUTH                   Kevan Anthony Cameron

scruffmouth.com      vimeo.com/scruffmouth          soundcloud.com/scruffmouth          rawartists.org/scruffmouth

@scruffmouth                                 facebook.com/scruffmouth    

Kevan Anthony Cameron is passionate about the written and spoken word.  Born in Edmonton, Alberta to Jamaican parents, Kevan Cameron was a scholar-athlete and professional soccer player before writing poems and performing for film, television, commercials and new media opened new doors for Scruffmouth to write and perform his own original works professionally. As founder and creative director for Black Dot Roots and Culture Collective, Kevan initiates relevant and groundbreaking projects in Canada such as Hogan’s Alley Poetry Festival in Vancouver to satisfy the vision for the educational, creative and celebratory group that supports the reclamation of cultural space for indigenous peoples of African descent at home and abroad. Since 2011, Scruffmouth and Black Dot Roots and Culture Collective have been supported by Canada Council for the Arts to produce Spoken Notebook and Hogan’s Alley Poetry Festival.  Scruffmouth has toured internationally and is an established spoken word artist.