Abioseh “Sky Raven” Cole, is a vegan blacktivist, poet, and Hip-Hop Artist, whose work has a strong emphasis on social justice issues across many spectrums. His parents, a biracial couple, were very active in the anti-war protests in late 60's and early 70’s, and helped to organize the anti-apartheid boycotts in CT in the 80’s. His father was an immigrant from Sierra Leone, part Methodist minister, and part clinical social worker, and was very active in the community. His mother became an advocate for children and families with developmental disabilities, after one of his sisters was born with a rare syndrome that took her life as a teenager, when Sky Raven was 14.
That was the same year Sky Raven got serious about his writing, which was mainly Hip-Hop, an interest he was able to pursue in a Recording Technique’s class at his high school, and then even further at the
Hartford Conservatory of Music where he studied record production. In 1996, about a month before his 16th birthday, his father passed away after a 2-year battle with Colon Cancer that started with a western
oncologist, and ended with a traditional Chinese doctor. His father’s journey made Sky Raven question everything he had been taught to believe about food, medicine and the entire food and drug industry.
After some reading that included an American Cancer Association reference book circa 1996, where he read that colon cancer is “caused by stress on the intestines which is caused by eating meat,” Sky Raven became vegetarian in January of 1998. In 2000, while studying at University of Ghana at Legon, Sky Raven came across a book called Back to Eden, by Jethro Kloss, a book that helped him to transition to a vegan diet by December of 2000. However, because it was mainly for health reasons, Sky Raven still purchased some non-food animal products until spring of 2015, when he started working with Direct Action Everywhere (DXE), an animal rights organization, and the first that he had worked with. They inspired a piece that would become the reason Sky Raven became a poet. It was called I Am Not Food, and it was originally done for a DXE speak out from the perspective of farm animals, and it was recorded and later performed as a Hip-Hop piece.
However, Sky Raven found it to be much more effective as a spoken word piece, and started his journey as a poet. At the same time he went through a rite of passage with the indigenous Tsa-La-Gi Choctaw Intertribal Nation, after which he was named Sky Raven. This marked a complete change in direction in many ways both personally and professionally. As a poet, Sky Raven has performed at Connecticut College, the Nuyorican Poets Café, the Cantab, the Lizard Lounge, and astounded the vegan activist community with his performance at the World Vegan Summit.
Social Media
Facebook: @SkyRavenTheVeganPoet
YouTube: Sky Raven The Vegan Poet
