Watsky is the performance name of George Watsky, a writer and performer from San Francisco, United States. He works across stage, screen and music, and his output includes spoken word and hip-hop.

He is known for combining humour and frustration in his work, and for moving between poetry, theatre and performance. He is featured on season 6 of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO.

Poetry and spoken word

Watsky wins the 2006 Youth Speaks Grand Slam Poetry Championship and the 2006 Brave New Voices International Poetry Slam Championship. He performs in six consecutive Youth Speaks Grand Slam finals, with the last three drawing audiences of more than 3,000 and setting records as the largest poetry slam audiences in the world. In 2009, he is one of three poets to perform live on FOX at the NAACP Image Awards in honour of Russell Simmons’ lifetime achievement award.

Theatre and writing

He extends his work into theatre through the one-man show So Many Levels, which is presented in Boston, San Francisco, Vermont and at the Hip Hop Theater Festival’s Critical Breaks series in New York City. He also appears at the San Francisco and Washington, DC editions of the Hip Hop Theater Festival.

He plays the title role in, and co-writes, a 2004 adaptation of Dante’s Divine Comedy for the Living Word Festival. His stage play Harold’s Fall or King Will receives the 2009 Rod Parker Playwriting Fellowship.