music & poetry.

Azmera is an award-winning poet, musician, and cultural worker whose art explores faith, liberation, and collective healing. She is the author of the celebrated poetry collection Breaking The Boxes: Poems for Keeping Hope Alive When Your Faith Is Fractured (2025). Her work appears in numerous digital and print publications, including We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from Freedom Church of the Poor (2025), edited by Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis and Dr. Charon Hribar.

Azmera’s poetry has earned her national and international recognition, including a 2017–2018 U.S. Fulbright Creative and Performing Arts Fellowship, the 2016 USC Center for Black Culture and Student Affairs Most Innovative Trojan Award, and the USC Alpha Phi Alpha Maya Angelou Artistry Award. In 2017, she performed an original poem at the Los Angeles Theatre Center during the inaugural Johnny Guitar Watson Awards Gala. She also performed at the International Society of Black Latinos Awards Gala honoring L.A. Dodgers former head coach Manny Mota, the USC Women’s Conference, and the USC Black Alumni Association Graduation Ceremony. In 2020, she was commissioned to perform an original poem in honor of pioneering Hip Hop scholar Dr. Tricia Rose for the Roses Now! Event by Follow The Keepers. In 2024, her original poetry was featured in the film Speak Less, directed by award-winning filmmaker Kelly Kali.

In 2015, Azmera wrote, directed, and produced the spoken-word series Break The Boxes, beginning with her poem Capoeira. This work led her to Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, where she spent ten months studying capoeira and spoken word, Capoetics, as an artistic intervention and violence prevention practice.

As an independent musician, Azmera released her debut album Young Spirit Old Soul (2023) and the EP Az-a-Mirror(2024). She co-produced and co-directed the music video Zero-EFC (2024), filmed at Harvard University. In 2024, she appeared on CBS Sunday Morning as a semi-finalist alongside her family band, performing an original rendition of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now.”

Highlight of her musical journey include collaborations with incarcerated artists at Boston’s Nashua Street Jail through the Prison Studies Project, incredible musicians and producers such as akua naru on the single “Say How You Feel” (2024), Aric B. on “Best Friend” (2020), and her husband Dennis on the popular track “Crashing Into You” from Noble Sound (2023).

In 2020, Azmera became a co-founder and executive leader of the global Hip Hop collective Follow The Keepers, where she co-designed and implemented bilingual programming honoring Black women’s contributions to Hip Hop’s five-decade herstory. She continues to expand her artistic practice and is currently developing several forthcoming projects across poetry, music, and cultural organizing.

Past events.

Select past commissioned performances, collaborations, events.

Live Poetry Performance.

Gallery.