Last Tuesday night at the Fillmore's Sundance Kabuki, saw the premiere screening of a new Home Box Office series, "Russell Simmons Presents Brave New Voices". HBO and Youth Speaks, one of the nation's leading nonprofit presenter of Spoken Word performance, education and youth development programs, created this compelling new series about talented and challenged young adults from youths from SF, NYC, Hawaii, Philly and Michigan facing homelessness, sickle cell anemia, obesity, adversity and more.

Immediately following the screening was a live performance from two of the poets in the series and a Q&A with Brave New Voices Executive Producer Stan Lathan and James Kass, Co-executive Producer of Brave New Voices and Executive Director, Youth Speaks. The screening was followed by a separate fundraiser produced by and benefiting Youth Speaks.

Actor-producer-director Robert Redford, Stan Lathan and Dave Eggers were among the few hundred guests who indeed came out to support Youth Speaks and this groundbreaking new series, and narrated by Queen Latifah, which chronicles the lives of teen poets from seven cities around the nation as they prepare to compete in Youth Speaks' annual Brave New Voices Festival.

"Youth Speaks is thrilled to be working with HBO on this historic project," said Youth Speaks' Founder & Executive Director and series' Co-Executive Producer, James Kass. "This is a story about some of the greatest teen poets in the country, about the remarkable voices of our young people--the voices of 21st Century America."

When Youth Speaks organized their first poetry slam 13 years ago, they set the stage for one of the biggest spoken word movements in the country. This resulted in the Brave New Voices Festival, a monumental festival that features teen poetry slam champions from cities, rural, and suburban areas from all over the world. Held in a different city each year, Brave New Voices has taken place at esteemed venues such as the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, The San Francisco Opera House, The Apollo Theater, and the Chicago Theater, drawing thousands of audiences each year.

The premiere saw the showing of the first two episodes of the series and when the screen faded to black and said "to be continued...", the entire audience gasped and was left wanting to see more. Truly compelling film-making; honest, real and I absolutely loved it. Sitting behind Robert Redford didn't hurt either. The program premieres Sunday, April 5th at 11:00 pm on HBO.

E. "Doc" Smith is a musician and recording engineer who has worked with the likes of Brian Eno, Madonna, Warren Zevon, Mickey Hart, Jimmy Cliff, and John Mayall among others. He is also the inventor of the musical instrument, the Drummstick. He can be reached via myspace.com/edoctorsmith