Career
He is best known for winning the 2001 National Poetry Slam Competition and appearing on Russell Simmons" Def Poetry Jam performing a piece entitled Popular Dirt on Home Box Office. He appeared in a one-man show based on his book Pistols and Prayers, and wrote another one-person show called Who"s Krazy?. He has also presented a multi-media conceptual art project, Brighter than Blight
He was featured along with several other Oakland artists in the book Oakland in Popular Memory by Matt Werner. Childhood and Family Ise Lyfe was born to Sharon and Francis Brown on December 28, 1982.
He has two younger siblings named Erin and Constance Brown.
He attended Montera Junior High School (Now Montera Middle School) in the Oakland Hills/Montclair area where he was bussed to a higher economic school. He began rapping in junior high school.
Turning Point (2002 Concert Murder)
Ise Lyfe attended Skyline High School (Oakland, California) from 1997–2001, graduating in 2001. He performed average academically and faced common challenges experienced by young Black men growing up in American inner-cities.
In a 2006 documentary on his early life and young adulthood directed by Erica Engineer, Lyfe recounts a turning point in his life where he witnessed a riot at a rap concert at the age of 17 when someone violently lost their life.
He said he realized that he and many others had grown numb to violence and this startled him towards a more deliberate path of being constructive. His performing and writing as a teen poet commenced shortly after. Visionary Artist, Community Organizer and Activist
Ise Lyfe became popular on the Bay Area Spoken Word and Hip-Hop scene in the early 2000"son
Lyfe also became a young voice for social justice and community organizing.
He co-founded a social justice arts/activism collective, P.O.W.E.R., and was also affiliated with Youth Together, Youth Speaks, Leadership Excellence, and other organizations addressing social inequity. He worked as a regional marketer for Def Jam West promoting artists and special events and was inspired to form his company Lyfe Productives at the age of 23 years, a Product Development firm specializing in developing products and campaigns with healthy and transformative outcomes.
