Levi Tafari

Who is Levi Tafari?

Levi Tafari was born and raised in the city of Liverpool by his Jamaican parents. He attended catering college, where he studied classical French cuisine and graduated with distinction. In the early 1980s, while working as a caterer, he started attending the Liverpool 8 Writers Workshop and decided to become a performance poet. Tafari was a firm member of the Rastafarian movement and although his early performances were in that community, he saw it as his duty to reach a wider audience and began performing overseas.

Tafari self-identifies as an Urban Griot. He has four collections of poetry, Duboetry, Liverpool Experience, Rhyme Don’t Pay and From the Page to the Stage. His plays have been performed at the Blackheath Theater in Stafford and the Unity Theatre, Liverpool. He was also the first person to use the term “duboetry.” Several of his musical tracks can be found on compilation albums and he has recorded poetry, which has been released on audiocassette.

Tafari often runs creative writing workshops at schools, colleges, universities and prisons.