Joe Cook

Joe Cook a.k.a Cookie is a spoken word artist, musician and activist from Birmingham UK. Originally a lyricst for Birmingham reggae punk band Lobster. Joe has exploded onto the spoken word scene. Joe's style has been described as 'The Streets meets Joe Strummer'. Joe delivers social commentary in lyrical rhythmic style. His two biggest influences are Bill Hicks and Immortal Technique merging these styles to deliver comical hard hitting rhymes. Joe produced and hosted season three of Level UP! a sell out spoken word event at The REP Birmingham featuring artists such as Polarbear, Ty, Kat Francois, Sowetto Kinch and Tongue Fu. Joe has gigged heavily across the UK in venues such as The South Bank Centre, The REP, Birmingham Town Hall, Rainbow Warehouse, Midlands Arts Centre and worked alongside other poetry organisations such as Apples & Snakes, Burn After Reading and Mouthy Poets. Joe facilitates poetry/rap,music and drumming workshops across the midlands working in schools, youth clubs, community centres and hostels as well as volunteering at local youth centre. Joe was fortunate to be part of the BBC 1xtra Words First series in Birmingham performing at Hit The Ode in collaboration with Roundhouse and BBC 1XTRA. Most recently Joe has released a video for BBC Arts entitled ‘How To Be A Poet With Dyslexia’ which received great feedback online and was also shared by the BBC on National Poetry Day 2016 ‘Five Great Performances’ alongside John Cooper Clarke, Kate Tempest, George The Poet and Rachel McCrum. Joe alongside his band Ire-ish wrote the brummie christmas parody song ‘Fairytale of New Street’ which ended up going viral online.