Anthony Lauderdale, "The First Wonder of The World"

Anthony Lauderdale’s poetry is an honest reflection of his life experiences as an African-American, vagabond, social activist and academic. He lived in three states and two continents before he started Kindergarten. Therefore, his views politically, socially, culturally and economically are infused with international yet nationalistic zeal. Considering how personal his poetry is he only shared it with close friends as he pursued a triple major in International Studies, Political Science and Economics with a language of study in Arabic. However, while pursuing his master’s he attended an open mic and won the event. Within two months he was contacted by Def Jam to provide his poetry for an upcoming mixtape and found himself torn between his academic and poetic life. He was interning at the Illinois Office of Trade and Investment by day, in class by night and performing until the wee hours of the morning in order to pad a solid resume academically and poetically. He’s opened for Outlandish, did the intro for a mixtape with the likes of T.I., Lupe Fiasco and Twista, managed and performed at the Chicago Conference on Human Rights, performed at Art Against Aids, Showcase on Chicago, Café Intifada, Café Resistance, was a finalist for Strictly Flow and was recently asked to perform for Playboy. After performances producers would give him beats to write to and before he knew it had over 200 beats. Since they respected his lyrical capability the transition into songwriting was smooth. Within a short amount of time he formed a solid network of rappers, singers and producers throughout America and Canada. His blog is found at: www.thefirstwonderoftheworld.com