ABOUT DEF
Def Sound (pronouns they/them) is an Afro-Caribbean conceptual word artist born and based in South Central LA. Def is a postbinary contemporary hip-hop artist, producer, poet, and award-winning academic. Def is Grammy nominiated for their work as a producer on aja monet’s debut album ‘when the poems do what they do’.
Def’s work as a poet has been included in Saul Williams' Anthology CHORUS, while their music has been featured in Season 4 of ABC’s Grownish, LA WEEKLY, LA Record, The L.A. Times, The Frieze Art Fair, LACMA’s Poetry series POETRY In Color, the art exhibition The Black Index curated by Bridget Cooks, the Emmy Nominated Television series Music Diaries, and the Emmy winning Artbound on KCET. Def is currently teaching Hip Hop/Black Critical Theory at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
Def is a word worker whose favorite medium is memory. When speaking about their practice Def spoke, “Every truth is a dare. Let's dare to tell it. I believe that being a writer is a daily practice of deciding to be a better person.” Def is an oil and water combination of ambition, pessimism, absurdism, criticality, optimism, insecurity, and effort.
Def’s song I BEEN made KCRW’s list for Best Songs of 2022. Def synthesizes Hip Hop, poetry, Black critical theory and storytelling into healing mechanisms decorating time and space.
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