If you ask Queen Sheba how she became a genius, she’ll reply, “I was born.” Born Bethsheba A. Rem, the Queen is one of the reigning spoken word artists not only in the United States, but all of North America. The debate of whether or not lyrics are poetry has been a long and hotly contested argument, but no artists blurs the line as well as Queen Sheba; endless lines of brilliance are dropped over neo-soul tunes and hip-hop beats with award-winning musicians. It’s no small wonder that two of her albums have been nominated for Grammy Awards, and Sheba herself has been nominated the NAACP Image Award for her works in the hip-hop feminist anthology, Home Girls Make Some Noise. She is ridiculously and unapologetically talented, and that talent has taken her all over the world, touring in Europe, West Africa, Cuba and Canada, as well as “from coffeehouse to coliseum” in the US. Queen Sheba has been published in a score of magazines and poetry journals, has spoken at over two hundred universities (along with being the poet in residence at the University of Illinois Champaign Urbana, and has been the key note speaker at events such as Take Back the Night, Domestic Violence, AIDs awareness for young adults and the National Women in Hip-Hop conference. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.