Emcee/singer/Poet/Blog Junky. I'm a freedom writer, Truth seeker, Truth speaker. A cheeky joker. hehehe I'm on a journey and documenting my experience...If You need to holla at me, Email me here: KarlNovaBookings@gmail.com
Wow, happy new year. It has been a while since I have posted here. From looking at my stats, I am seeing that a lot of people check here daily so I just HAD to come through with an update. I have been so busy doing a lot of things but I always say that don't I? 2018 was one of the best years of my life and that is not an exaggeration at all! My last post on August 1st was already showing how amazing it was going but coming into the final quarter of the year things even went up a notch as far as being busy! The summer was so hot that it inspired me to release a little afroeat flavoured EP. I knocked it together in no time, dropped it and bounced outta London to Rome! This will hold you over until my new album is ready. Listen to the EP below:
I shot a video for "International Style" which is the lead single from the EP check it out!
I enjoyed a very happy birthday in Rome. That city is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen in my life. I mean wow, it is really something that must be seen.
I landed back in London and enjoyed the last bit of summer holiday I had and hit the road again. Below is where I went. I had a festival I did before my birthday during the summer that was lovely. I have never had such a busy final quarter ever. I had the most amazing time even though it was a lot of hard work. To be able to positively affect so many people with rhythm and poetry is a joy I cannot describe.
I could give stories about every single place I went to. One of the places I got to go to was Ankara in Turkey. That trip right there was so good. I got to do some work with young people at the British Embassy School. When I landed in Istanbul, I missed my connecting flight to Ankara and this was because the flights were booked too close to each other, a delay in the flight taking off from Heathrow to begin with and me not knowing I needed a visa to get into Turkey haha. Thankfully I got to Ankara and stayed in a lovely hotel. Can I just say that Ankara is beautiful? Oh my gosh! Pics below.
That trip right there was so good. I will never forget it! I was warmly welcomed by all the staff and the students there were so good. We did some great work. During my touring I got to pop over to Paris. It was my first time going back since 2012 when I was there for a 10 day tour after the album I did with an indie label had just been released in a very discouraging way. Paris boosted me back then! It was so good to go back! Paris still and will always do it for me. I was there at the time a riot was happening. I saw some peaceful protesters but I didn't see when it got very ugly.
I rounded up my year with finishing off my residency at Tithe Farm in Houghton Regis. I have been with them the whole year. I visited every Friday. I am telling you, doing that stretched me and caused me to grow probably more than all the other places I have been the whole year. I truly treasure my visits there. The students and I have done some very creative things. The staff there are warm, welcoming and friendly. I am happy I am getting to be there with them this year. They made this lovely display for me.
On the same day I did my last date, I got to host and even drop a verse at The Write House which held all the way in Ashford, Kent. I just took it as my end of the year party and it was such a good night!
I just want to say if there is any student or teacher or anyone at all who I have come in contact with as a result of what I do reading this, I just want to say thank you. I honestly don't take any of this for granted at all. Thank you for checking me out, inviting me to share, thank you for listening, thank you for reading. I think this is the year I realised more than ever that more people check me out more than I thought.
I think I will end this blog entry by posting a link to an interview I did with Nikki Gamble of Just Imagine. It was an interview that went on their "In the reading corner" podcast. It was recorded in Birmingham City University after I had just done a performance/presentation as well as workshop with some teachers in training. That was another memorable day because getting to do that meant a lot to me. I love Birmingham, it holds some very nice memories and I love getting to do things in Universities, I consider it an honour. Click below to listen and may this year be a great year for you!
So the last time I blogged here was January 1st and for some reason I decided to take an extended hiatus from blogging and here we are on August 1st. I think I just got too busy and didn't feel inspired to blog. A lot has happened in 7 months, A LOT! I really can't tell it all and I really should have been blogging as things were happening. I still believe in blogging even though it is not as hot and as popular as it used to be. I started this blog to keep myself in the practice of long form writing and also to have it as a time capsule. My whole thing has been to live life and write about it! I guess the best thing I can do is put down some highlights! So here we go.
So I came into this year with guns blazing and I have to say the first quarter of this year was the busiest I have ever been in a first quarter doing my thing as a Hip Hop artist, poet and author who is a travelling creative writing facilitator EVER!
One of the new things I got to do this year is have a full 20 week residency for a whole term in one place in addition to all the other places I was travelling to. I have to say it was great being in Tithe Farm in Houghton Regis but more about that later.
I don't want to go into detail about this first quarter because it is A LOT to cover, but if you are curious the below episode of my podcast delves into my travels at the time. It also happens to be the last episode I decided to do for a while. I think I just got too busy to give it the attention I felt it needed. I might bring it back again. If I do I will launch it better and make it more interesting.
As I was travelling in the first quarter I got a message from my publisher Authors Abroad that my debut book "Rhythm And Poetry" had been shortlisted for a CLiPPA Award. I was told that I was not allowed to say anything about it until the official announcement which was going be to made public the next month on April 26th. I was quite blown away by this because when I wrote my book, I never thought about things like awards AT ALL. I didn't even know an award for the kind of book I wrote existed. I think earlier on in the year Authors Abroad mentioned something in passing about how nice it would be for me to be shortlisted (or something to that effect) but I honestly thought nothing of it and totally forgot. I don't think I was even listening properly haha! All I was thinking was "where is the next place I am booked to go guys!" lol
What made it even sweeter was on April 24th I was gonna be celebrating the 1st year anniversary of the release of my book. It felt so serendipitous. I felt like it was meant to happen. At this stage I was simply happy to be shortlisted. I didn't think I would win. I did think hmmm maybe I could win but I didn't think I actually would. I am a newbie to the literary world. All I felt was a kind of reassurance that me releasing this book was the right thing for me to have done. It is not that I didn't know this already, but as a newbie author who was writing in the dark with a style and approach that was different from the norm, it was quite nice to be "seen" and acknowledged.
The run up to the awards was really cool, this interview with Zoe Toft of Play By The Book was so good, read it here. It is probably one of the best interviews I have ever done. I got to be on Blue Peter. I was aware of it being a big deal but I didn't really KNOW like that haha. I met up with fellow CliPPA nominees Sue Hardy-Dawson and Ruth Awolola at BBC media city in Manchester and we were told to pick out a random topic from a hat and write a poem in 10 mins! If you want to see the results of that you can watch it here.
The day of the awards came and yes much to my surprise I won. It was surreal. I am just going to post the video of me giving my acceptance speech below because I don't even know what else to say hahaha.
Immediately after the ceremony I got whisked away to the BBC to be on their front view show. I have always wanted to go there and now I was being interview on one of their shows! You can listen to the interview I did by clicking here. I got to the BBC at the same time Nigeria was playing Iceland in the world cup and they went on to win that match. (I just had to add that bit because I LOVED THIS WORLD CUP this year!)
The lady with the blonde hair in the picture below is Yvonne Lang. She had only just joined the Authors Abroad team in September last year. She believed my book was worthy of winning the CLiPPA award. If it wasn't for her this wouldn't have happened. It is awesome to have a team of people who believe in you. It was also great meeting Trevor Wilson of Authors Abroad for the first time after almost 3 years of us talking on the phone and emailing each other. It was him and Robin Snook that convinced me that partnering with them to release my book was the way to go. I am thankful for their guidance and support
So at this point we are well into the 2nd quarter of the year which was even busier than the first for me. I think I might need to do another podcast episode because travelling was A LOT. I continued and finished my residency at Tithe Farm in Houghton Regis as well as travelled to many other places including being back for the 5th year at Luton Town Stadium and also going up north to Harrogate, Yorkshire to be part of a corporate event. That was very different because I got to create some verses and perform them on the day as a kind of "wrap up" of the event. Very different. In fact the event was called "Think Differently"
One of the high points of the 2nd quarter was getting to go to Switzerland because I had never been there before. I was up in the mountains in Villars and it was beautiful. I got to do my thing at Beau Soleili and once again serendipity hit. I wasn't supposed to be there but an author who was booked to go unfortunately became ill and I was asked if I wanted to fill in at the last minute by Authors Abroad. Of course I said YES! ha! This would be the 3rd international trip they had booked me to go to, the others being trips to Germany and Cyprus. If you are interested in seeing a couple of pics I took while out there click here.
In between all this travelling I felt very musically inspired and found time to record. So new music is definitely on the way. Look out for THAT!
Ok this blog entry is getting too long, serves me right for not posting anything for 7 months! I just got back from a holiday in Canada. It was lovely out there. I was in Vancouver, Regina and briefly breezed through Toronto on my way back. I am only just recovering from jet lag but I would do it all again right now, ten times over.
If you have read this blog entry up to this point you are a champion haha! thank you! I just want to say thank you to everyone who has supported me on my journey so far, you know who you are! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! There is more to come. If I had to wrap everything up that has happened in the last 7 months it would be with the thought of truly appreciating every moment and being thankful because when you're in it, it isn't easy to do that. I think that is why I still blog. It is to help me appreciate the journey and remember how far I have come. There's much more to my journey than these highlights, SO MUCH MORE! This is why the quote "Stop comparing your behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel" is such a great quote.
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