Sekou Andrews is the Founder/CEO of SekouWorld, Inc., innovator of “Poetic Voice,” and one of the most successful spoken word poets in the world. On any given day, this schoolteacher turned artist and entrepreneur, who built a 7-figure company on poetry, can be found keynoting at a Fortune 500 company, inspiring thousands at a concert, or performing for Barack Obama in Oprah’s backyard.
Sekou is the creator of “poetic voice” – a cutting-edge speaking category that seamlessly fuses inspirational speaking with spoken word poetry, like “Hamilton” meets “TED.” This innovative blend of strategic storytelling, thought leadership, spoken word, theater, and comedy humanizes content, making it entertaining, moving and memorable. Sekou’s accomplishments include two National Poetry Slam championships, two national poetry tours, two Independent Music Awards, three Helen Hayes Awards, the most “Just Plain Folks” music awards in history, the 2020 ABA “Entrepreneur of the Year” award, and the first “Best Spoken Word Album” Grammy nomination for a poet in 30 years.
It is no surprise that Forbes has called Sekou a “polymath” and “the de facto poet laureate of corporate America.” His “wow-factor” is in high-demand with the world’s most successful organizations, including Google, Viacom, Toyota, Nike, Cisco, Linkedin, Capital One, L’Oreal, Global Green, Paypal, ASAE, The Gap, Paypal, General Mills, the ACLU, and the NBA to name but a few. Sekou’s work has also been featured on such diverse national media outlets as ABC World News, CBS, MSNBC, HBO, Good Morning America, Showtime, MTV, and BET, and he has given private performances for such prominent individuals as Maya Angelou, Quincy Jones, Larry King, Hillary Clinton, Norman Lear, Sean “Diddy” Combs, and Coretta Scott King. Sekou has also emerged as a powerful voice for health and wellness, routinely evoking tears, cheers, and standing ovations at events for clients such as the Johnson & Johnson, United Healthcare, Mayo Clinic, Blue Shield, Kaiser Permanente, TEDMED, Roche, Northwell Health, Genentech, and the American Medical Association.
Sekou is a multi-talented entertainer with over 2 decades of experience inspiring audiences across platforms and genres. He has shared event stages with such heavyweights as Drake, Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, Carlos Santana, Kendrick Lamar, Maroon 5, Jill Scott, and John Legend. He is also a voiceover artist and actor with several national commercials, three films, and an original, critically-acclaimed, two-man play on his resume. With creative partner Steve Connell, Sekou has inspired audiences from the HBO US Comedy Arts Festival to The Pasadena Pops Orchestra. Sekou has even returned to the classroom, teaching his rockstar secrets to public speakers through his highly effective Stage Might™ speaker training system that helps executives, influencers and leaders become more dynamic communicators.
With all of the innovation and inspiration that is poetic voice, Sekou Andrews is accomplishing the seemingly impossible – bringing spoken word poetry to the world’s largest stages, while redefining the notion of what a speaker is, and what a poet can be
Sekou’s unique style of poetry has rocked audiences of 12,000 in Battery Park, inspired thousands from The Theater at Madison Square Garden to the Kodak Theater, been featured on HBO, BET, MTV and ABC World News, and brought down the house at private events for Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Quincy Jones, Norman Lear and more. Having shared the stage with such entertainment heavyweights as Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, Carlos Santana, Kendrick Lamar, and the Pasadena Pops Orchestra, Sekou is comfortable on any stage, and is the perfect artist to rock your party, festival, TV special, fundraiser, club, or private event.
I was like, “Oh, there’s this poet coming in … this is going to be totally lame and boring.” But when he came onto the stage… I was absolutely mesmerized with his ability to turn the audience on. Our challenge is “How do we get people thinking differently?” And I’ve got to tell you, I paid for a catalogue speech and this guy came in and delivered one of the most exceptional experiences that this company has had. We’ve seen a tremendous amount of shift in our people.”
“It’s hard to imagine the artistry of this young man; his ability to take a concept – factual information – weave it into a story, move an audience, and structure a presentation of the most complex [form], taking us up and taking us down. It’s not a single message, but a series of waves; a crescendo, and they don’t end in the beach, they end in hope and understanding. I’m in awe of his talents.”
“Our challenge is to help our organization understand how customers are experiencing [our industry’s] changes… what are the implications for us as a company. So we went to Sekou, to try to have him help us see all these changes through the eyes of our customers, and what it means for us. Sekou opened up our global leaders meeting, with a fantastic soliloquy [on] the customer of the future in a way that cut through to the one hundred top leaders at eBay… it got our whole organization and our whole leadership team focused…The reaction was very positive, both to his remarkable talent [and], even more importantly, to the messages his performance conveyed to us; it helped us have a really productive meeting thereafter.”
“Sekou was absolutely the perfect presenter for [our] environment… He left the podium, went down into the audience, he connected with all the people who were there. He did a fantastic job. He was very well received. I saw smiles coming across their faces, I saw young people saying, ”Oh, he gets it!” and older people saying, ”Oh, he DOES get it!” My 70 year old parents were there, as well as my 13 year old son and 15 year old daughter. I asked them “What presentation really struck you?” And both groups, without hesitation, start with Sekou Andrews.”
“A true professional that went out of his way to fully understand who he would
be speaking to. He connected his presentation with the attendees.”
