Tef Poe

Battle Rap to Mixtapes

Tef Poe, short for Teflon Poetix, is the stage name of Kareem Jackson, a rapper, activist and writer from St. Louis, Missouri. He spent his early childhood in Pine Lawn, a small municipality in north St. Louis County. He began writing as a young child and was battle rapping by 13, building a reputation as one of the city's top battle MCs and receiving Lyricist of the Year from the Evening Whirl. Early on he worked in the group Soul Tyde and the duo Honors English, then released solo mixtapes including Glory 2 God (2008) and Money Never $leep$ (2010).

War Machine and National Attention

His War Machine series widened his audience. War Machine 2, released on June 5, 2012, ran 24 tracks with guests including Royce da 5'9", Killer Mike, I-20, Rockwell Knuckles and Theresa Payne. He was The Source's Unsigned Hype in 2012, and in early 2013 he held the Freestyle Friday title for four weeks on BET's 106 & Park. He also wrote a Riverfront Times column called "I'm Just a Rapper." Cheer for the Villain, produced entirely by DJ Burn One, followed on February 17, 2014, with appearances from Black Spade, Rockwell Knuckles and GLC. Over the years he performed with or opened for Lupe Fiasco, Talib Kweli, Big Boi and Rakim.

Ferguson and Hands Up United

After Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson in August 2014, Tef Poe became one of the most visible voices of the protests. He co-founded the Hands Up United movement, traveled to Geneva with Brown's family to address the United Nations about police violence, wrote op-eds for Time and the Riverfront Times, and released protest records including "War Cry." His activism is documented in the film Whose Streets?, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017.

Harvard and Black Julian

From 2016 to 2017 he was a fellow at Harvard's Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History and the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute, working with historian Walter Johnson, and he later held a Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellowship at Harvard. His album Black Julian came out in 2017, followed by Black Julian 2: Never Satisfied, released around the turn of 2018 with Cornel West heard throughout the record. He has continued to appear on releases by other artists, with credits listed as recently as 2024.