With whimsical imagery and a syncopated, turbocharged flow, Watsky is a multi-talented DIY success story who blends spoken word and rap. • Watsky’s father is a former English professor, while his mother worked as an elementary school librarian. He credits his parents with fostering his passion for wordplay. • A high school teacher referred the once-disruptive Watsky to Youth Speaks, a poetry workshop in San Francisco. In 2006, he was crowned the Youth Speaks Grand Slam Poetry Champion. • He appeared on Season 6 of HBO’s Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam. • Watsky’s jazz/hip-hop band Invisible Inc. released a self-titled album in 2007. The ensemble returned for a second LP in 2018. • In the 2010s, Watsky earned hundreds of millions of streams portraying William Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe in the web series Epic Rap Battles of History. • His 2014 album All You Can Do cracked the Top 40 on the Billboard 200 album chart. It includes “Whoa Whoa Whoa,” an Anderson .Paak–produced song with a video starring Jim Belushi and Bo Burnham. • His Shockwave-assisted song “An Open Letter” appears on the 2016 gold-certified Hamilton Mixtape compilation. • Penguin Books’ Plume division compiled 13 of Watksy’s essays for the 2016 book How To Ruin Everything.