Chance The Rapper Set for LOUDER THAN A BOMB's Team Finals, 3/28

Young Chicago Authors (YCA), producers of the world's largest youth poetry festival, is currently presenting Louder Than A Bomb (LTAB). The six-week festival culminates with Indy Finals on Saturday, March 21 at the Rubloff Theater at the Art Insitute of Chicago (280 S Columbus Dr, ) and Team Finals on Saturday, March 28 the Arie Crown Theater (2301 S Lake Shore Dr.) Both events run from 6 - 9 p.m. These events will feature the most talented youth poets in the Chicago area, sharing verses filled with their insights, including stories of injustice and inequality.

Chance The Rapper, a Chicago native and an alumnus of Young Chicago Authors' workshops and performer at past festivals, will appear at the "half-time" of the Team Finals at the Arie Crown on March 28. Chance was recently hailed by Rolling Stone as "the strongest new voice in hip-hop," and was named Spin's 2013 Rapper of the Year.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of LTAB, which has been supported this year by the likes of Alec Baldwin, Alfre Woodard and hip-hop composter Ali Shaheed Muhammad (a.k.a. Ali from A Tribe Called Quest). LTAB was also featured on Oprah's OWN Network and you can find the "Louder Than A Bomb" documentary streaming on Netflix. The 2015 Louder Than A Bomb festival encompasses more than 90 performances at 10 venues, featuring the talents of 1,300 students from more than 130 schools, from 100 different Chicago area zip codes.

"This is the fifteenth year of the Louder Than A Bomb: Chicago Youth Poetry Festival. In that time, LTAB has grown in Chicago into one of the largest youth cultural gatherings in the world," says Poet, LTAB founder and YCA artistic director Kevin Coval. "Collectively, we are changing the culture of the community. If we change the culture, we change the politics and, ultimately, the policies. There is power here: a growing mass, an army, a counter-culture to norms that dehumanize people of color, the working class, and the critically underserved. The poets at LTAB in Chicago and the nationwide movement they represent are changing things for the better. Together we will make a more equitable country for all."

March 21: Indy Finals
6-9 p.m., Rubloff Auditorium, Art Institute Of Chicago, 280 S. Columbus Drive
Louder Than A Bomb Indy Finals will feature the top 12 scoring individual poets in an Olympic-style poetry slam. These youths will take center stage and share their stories to an audience of more than 750 guests. Individual poets are representing the following schools: Goodman Ed, Logan Center - Rebirth Poetry Ensemble, Niles West High School, Noble Street College Prep, Simeon Career Academy, Thornwood High School, Kuumba Lynx community organization and Rogers Elementary.

March 28: Team Finals
6-9 p.m., Arie Crown Theater, 2301 S. Lake Shore Drive
Louder Than A Bomb Team Finals will feature defending champions Kuumba Lynx and Rebirth Poetry Ensemble, Simeon Career Academy and Niles West High School in a four-round, Olympic-style poetry slam. This evening's event will feature an appearance by Young Chicago Authors alumnus Chance The Rapper.

Tickets for both events are $10 students, $20 adults and can be purchased at www.youngchicagoauthors.org.

About Louder Than A Bomb - Entering its 15th season, Louder Than A Bomb (LTAB) is the largest, youth poetry festival in the world. With 10 chapter sites around the country, Los Angeles is launching its festival in 2015 and New York City is scheduled for 2016. LTAB was founded in Chicago in 2001 and is hosted and produced by the non-profit organization Young Chicago Authors. Annually attracting 1300 participants from 130 schools across 100 different Chicagoland zip codes, LTAB offers high school in-class and afterschool teams focused on a Literary Arts curriculum as a team sporting event -- with goals of growing reading and writing literacy combined with social and emotional development work that inspires young people, teachers and artists to invigorate educational spaces.

Running from February to March, the five-week Chicago Louder Than A Bomb festival attracts participants from diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. This year, more than 90 events will engage the festival participants in bouts, panel discussions, literary readings and multidisciplinary art battles. More than 10,000 audience members and participants attended the festival programming across Chicago in 2014.

Louder Than A Bomb Chapter sites around the country include: Tulsa, OK; Ann Arbor, MI; Detroit, MI; Boston, MA; Washington DC/Maryland/Virginia; Omaha, NE; Camden, NJ; Kansas City Metro and Ontario, Canada. Over the course of the year, YCA also serves 5,000 young people in Chicago through various year-round workshops, residencies and projects in writing, publication and performance education.

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