Shane Solanki

Poet, performer and iconoclast Shane Solanki was born in London in 1971. He threw away his future as an accountant at an early age by abandoning his degree to live in a South London squat run by dodgy Rastafarian poet Micheal Archangel. Michael introduced Shane to Fela Kuti, setting the fresh-faced Anglo-Asian poet on a path of creative skulduggery and academic denial.

Shane Solanki is an artist whose practise revolves around text, performance, comedy, theatre, music and live art. He mixes engaging lyrical content with elements of comedy cabaret and an eclectic soundtrack borrowing from jazz, ska, gypsy, reggae and hip hop. Mercurial in nature, his career has seen him collaborate with some of the UK’s most innovative artists and producers, including Talvin Singh, Arun Ghosh, Don Letts, Ninja Tune, Quarantine and Motiroti. His last show ‘Broken English’ toured internationally, with performances in Kenya, India and America. He has performed across the UK and Europe, including shows at the South Bank Centre and Tate Modern. In 2010 Shane collaborated with Indian electronic music pioneers Bandish Projekt in the UK as part of the Alchemy festival, and in India as part of a British Council initiative.

Shane is committed to poetry, music and theatre in education and works countrywide as a facilitator and workshop leader with organizations such as A New Direction, Creative Partnerships, Eastside Educational Trust and Bow Arts Trust. He currently resides in Hackney.

With 2011 commissions from Motiroti and Phrased and Confused, Shane is also artist-in-residence at East London arts centre Rich Mix, where amongst many projects he has recently co-promoted Tongue Fu, where the UK’s best spoken word artists improvise with jazz musicians. He is currently writing an anthology and an illustrated children’s book, and works as a facilitator in education, performing and leading workshops in schools across the country.