Writer, slam champion poet, recording artist, educator, and founding member of The Getback, Rafael Casal is one of the few multi-talented undeniable rising forces in the performance world. By 18, Rafael was already a 2-time (Inter)National BNV Poetry Slam Finalist Champion, had featured on season 4 of Russell Simmons' Def Poetry on HBO, and had performed all over the country for crowds as large as 30,000. In the last few years, Rafael has since re-appeared on season 5 & 6 of Def Poetry on HBO, Released his full length debut LP As Good As Your Word, Toured heavily with both his solo Spoken word performance and his band & collective The Getback Crew, and co-wrote The One Drop Rule; a Hip Hop theater piece directed by GOLDIE award winner Marc Bamuthi Joseph, in collaboration with the San Francisco Jazz Ensemble and Alvin Ailey tap instructor Jason Samuel Smith, to premiere at the Living Word festival, 2008. In addition to his work on the stage, Rafael spent the bulk of six years mentoring in the public school system on staff at Youth Speaks, a non-profit literary arts program based out of San Francisco promoting literacy and youth development through after- school programming & the Brave New Voices National Youth Poetry Slam. Now in 2008, he has taken the position of Creative Director for First Wave, a Hip Hop theatre-based performing arts program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.