Jamila was born in love with Chicago but has been going steady with Providence for almost four years now.  She loves all things poetry and has been writing and performing spoken word for almost 5 years.  She has competed in several citywide and national poetry slams, winning first place in Chicago’s Louder Than A Bomb College Slam in 2009, and winning the award for “Best Female Poet” at CUPSI in 2010.   She has also featured at performance venues throughout the Northeast and Chicagoland.  She is currently in her senior year at Brown University, where she is concentrating in Africana Studies and Theatre Arts & Performance Studies.  At Brown, Jamila is a fervent member of WORD! performance poetry group.  In her spare time, she enjoys singing a capella and browsing kitten profiles on adoptapet.com. She currently has no idea what she is doing in her life after college, but she is hoping to come up with a rough draft sometime soon.  This is her first year as a mentor at New Urban Arts, and she is thrilled to be joining such a vibrant community of artists, friends, and all around cool people.