LOVE the poet

Sun Reporter

July 20, 2006

Hometown: Baltimore

Current members: Michelle "LOVE" Nelson

Founded in: 2001

Style: performance poetry

Influenced by: Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, Maya Angelou

Notable: On her two albums, "LOVE's Journey ... It Begins" and "LOVE's Journey ... The Middle Passage," Nelson injects her personal life into her music.

Quotable: "I take it as an opportunity to purge what's going on with me," Nelson said. "It's very therapeutic. I believe that if I can share my experience with the world and people who are out there and one person can say, 'Hey, I can relate to that,' and I touch one person's life and let them know that they're not alone in whatever it is they're going through, so be it. If that means I have to lay all my cards on the table, then I will."

For more information about the band, go to myspace.com/lovethepoet

[Sam Sessa]

sam.sessa@baltsun.com