James Ivy Richardson II is an American performance poet, spoken word artist, songwriter, and author. He won his first Grammy Award in 2023 with his sixth album, The Poet Who Sat By The Door.
Richardson is a three-time HBO Def Poet and is known for his performance on Kanye West's Grammy Award winning debut album The College Dropout (2004), which featured him on the song "Never Let Me Down" along with Jay-Z. He received an NAACP Image Award for his writing and on-camera narration of the BET documentary Muhammad Ali: The People's Champ.
