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A little over a month after suffering stab wounds to the neck, Micah Fletcher, survivor of the May 26 MAX train stabbings, will return to his roots as a performer and artist, according to the organizer of a hip-hop skills competition scheduled to take place at the end of the month.
Fletcher, along with more than 30 other upstart rappers, will participate in the Verbal Vanguard Awards, a local hip-hop showcase and contest set for June 30 at Artists Repertory Theater.
Event promoter Solomon Starr says he first met Fletcher a year ago while working on Division Street Stories, an open mic and video series focused on Portland rap.
A musician and poet, Fletcher became a regular at The Love Movement, a weekly hip-hop gathering at Valentines. Following the MAX incident, Starr wrote a blog post about Fletcher, including another act of samaritanism he witnessed just two days earlier:
The Verbal Vanguard Awards will put competitors through a series of lyrical challenges, with the winners determined by a panel of local rappers, including Mic Capes, Mic Crenshaw and Rasheed Jamal. Fletcher—who won the 2013 Verselandia poetry competition as a high school junior—signed up for the event prior to the attack on the MAX, but Starr says he is still committed to participating.
Other participants include Alexis Cannard, a student at Roosevelt High School who recently took third place in the national August Wilson Monologue Competition in New York.
Meanwhile, a host of local MCs, including Cool Nutz, Mic Capes and Libretto, will perform at a benefit concert for the victims of the attack June 16 at Roseland Theater.