DJ Renegade (Joel Dias-Porter) was born and raised in Pgh. PA. He is of Cape Verdean descent on his mother's side (Fogo). After High School he enlisted in the USAF. After leaving the service he became a professional disk jockey, in the DC area. In 1991 he quit his job and began living in homeless shelters, while undergoing an extensive Afrocentric study program. He also began to write poetry, and participate in Poetry Slams. In 1994-8 he competed in the National Poetry Slam finishing 5th, 4th, 3rd, and 2nd in the individual competition, and he is the 1998 Haiku Slam Champion. His poems have been published in Time Magazine, The Washington Post, Callaloo, Obsidian II, Underwood Review, Paterson Literary Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Red Brick Review, the GW Review, and in the anthologies Meow:Spoken Word from the Black Cat, 360 Degrees of Black Poetry, Slam(The Book), Revival: Spoken Word from Lollapallooza, Poetry Nation, Beyond the Frontier, Catch a Fire, and The Black Rooster Social Inn: Poetry and Art of the Black Rooster Collective, which he also edited. In 1995 he received the Furious Flower "Emerging Poet Award" from James Madison Univ. He has performed his work on the "Today" show, in a commercial for Legal Jeans, in the documentaries "Voices Against Violence", and SlamNation, on BET's Teen Summit, and in the feature film "Slam" which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival, and the Camera D'Or and Audience Awards at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998. Currently at work on a book of poems about the Cape Verdean-American experience, and a CD of jazz and poetry titled "A Desperate Wrestling of Tongues", he is informally educated, and a member of WritersCorps DC.