Lauded as one of the most transparent voices of this generation, Walela Nehanda is a Black, non binary, queer, leukemia warrior, cultural workers, and writer committed to societal change.

Born and raised in Los Angeles (Tongva Territory), Walela discovered spoken word poetry in 2013, at just 19 years old, as a means of coping with sexual assault. Since the beginning of their career, Walela has always known that words have power and there is an importance of using art as a means of not only connecting but inspiring people to fight against injustice. Over the years, Walela has been featured in a variety of publications: named in Out 100 2020, Teen Vogue, The Guardian, Nylon, Vice i-D, SELF Magazine, Jubilee, Unbound, Afropunk, and Instyle Magazine. In addition, Walela has performed at events for Politicon, Tree People, The Hammer Museum, Black Lives Matter, Busboys & Poets; and at colleges across the country from UCLA, USC, Occidental University, UCSB, Chapman University, SDSU to St. Olaf’s College, SUNY New Paltz, Penn State University, New York University - to name a few. After becoming houseless at 22 years old, Walela struggled for close to 2 years before being diagnosed with phase III chronic myeloid leukemia - advanced stage blood cancer. Through their experiences, Walela took time to study and analyze how society treats poor Black people: like disposable criminals. Consequently, they understood writing poems alone wasn’t enough to make a tangible difference in their community. So, Walela became a community organizer working within groups like Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and Spit Justice.

Through Walela’s time organizing, Walela has learned their poetry must act in service to the movement as a means to shift consciousness and communicate nuance in an accessible manner. They have also learned through being disabled that there are many ways to contribute to a movement with intention.

In addition, Walela has managed to amass an incredible following moving thousands of people through their unique presence on social media largely due to their cancer battle. Using apps like Instagram and Twitter, they consistently combat the popular idea that social media is for self interested endeavors. Instead, Walela uses it as an opportunity to share personal accounts of their experience with medical racism and their cancer progression, to share space to learn and educate, and prioritize those most marginalized. Walela is an intentionally open book while also remaining critical and thought provoking by identifying their personal experience within a broader societal context.