“Louder than a bomb, with the grace of a swan are the expressive deliveries of
RyanNicole a.k.a. Rye.”
MC, Poet, Writer, Actress, Activist Ms. RyanNicole approaches every stage like a summer breeze. Gentle and unassuming, she fires each word with the force of a cannon, increasing power with every line. Like the blows of a championship boxer, Ms. Nicole liberates every strike, overwhelming audiences to explode with accolades and praise screaming for more. Intense, profound and potent, her words extraordinarily rouse the spirit of the 400 years of the black American experience.
RyanNicole’s works are saturated in an awareness that is beyond her years. She knows without a shadow of a doubt that she is a vessel, and that hip-hop and the spoken word—her gifts—are her weapons of mass direction. She has even created platforms for her ministry on various stages with Barack Obama, Saul Williams, Floetry, Kindred, Bilal, Dwele, and MTV's Sway of Sway and King Tech, to name a few. With an arsenal of creations including Incorporated Omission, She's Back, and most popularly, Bootstraps, Ms. Ryan’s music and prose stand next to the stylings of legendary greats such as Nikki Giovanni, Lauryn Hill and Jessica Care Moore. Her steadfast philosophies can only be compared to academic marvels like Cornel West, Tavis Smiley and Michael Eric Dyson.
Her stage work is as eclectic and far-reaching as her other endeavors. As a playwright and actress, she has partnered with some of the most reputable theater organizations in the nation. An Associate Artist for the California Shakespeare Theater, Ms. RyanNicole most recently collaborated with Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco and internationally renown playwright, Naomi Izuika to produce, Hamlet: Blood In the Brain a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, playing "O" (Shakespeare's Ophelia). Extensive and continuing to astound, her theater work includes such other pieces as Chocolate Covered Truth (San Diego, adaptation For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Wasn't Enough, Ntozake Shange), Tree (San Francisco , Juile Hebert), and Everything Has Been Arranged (San Francisco, adaptation Small Boys Unit, Denis Johnson). In March 2009, RyanNicole will be the lead in SF Playhouse's Spring feature play, "The Story" (Tracey Scott Wilson), based on the true tale of a New York Times reporter fabricating a story, will be a co-production with the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.
Ms. RyanNicole's latest creative foray is a collaborative hip hop project by the name of Tenure: Nu Dekades. This effort is one shared with emcee K.E.V. (Kickin' Every Verse) and DJ Skech Money.
RyanNicole feels that works that mean something to the person, also mean something to the people. With this philosophy she writes as the voice of her people, women, and her generation in particular. Thus, writing and performing have solidified her belief that regardless of our outer conditions or circumstances, we are all interconnected. Undoubtedly, we are all one and blessed to have a young woman with such conviction equipped to speak for us all.
