malakaï (pronouns they/them/kaï) is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, curator and producer from pre-gentrified northeast London.

Led by curiosity and care, malakaï works across theatre, festivals, literature, audio and live events– creating and interrogating through an unapologetically Afroqueer lens. Their work is often non-linear, employing unconventional forms that disrupts notions of time and space; orbiting around ideas of Black interiority, hood surrealism, queer(ing) intimacy and carceral geographies.

As a director, malakaï’s work has been staged at venues including the Royal Court, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Bush Theatre and the National Gallery. malakaï has worked extensively with young people in community settings and in higher education; co-creating, devising, scripting and facilitating cross-disciplinary work with organisations including UAL, Lyric Hammersmith, Mountview, Hackney Empire, Unicorn Theatre, Serpentine Gallery and South London Gallery.

malakaï co-founded and was Artistic Director of The S+K Project, a producing theatre company specialising in nurturing the talent of emerging Black & Asian artists, between 2014-19. Aged 21, malakaï was appointed Associate Director at Theatre Peckham, responsible for the venue’s artistic programming, talent development and overseeing participatory community projects. More recently, malakaï recently completed an 18-month tenure leading the New Work department at Talawa, Britain’s primary Black-led touring theatre company– acting as a dramaturg, playwriting tutor, festival curator and director on a number of R&Ds, readings and projects for the stage and radio. They have also held producing roles with new writing companies such as Tamasha, Poet in the City and Nouveau Riche.

A Barbican Young Poets alumnus, malakaï is currently Co-Creative Director of Afro-diasporic literary arts organisation BORN::FREE, and remains passionate about expanding the canon of Black British writing across its forms. A writer themselves, malakaï has been commissioned as a writer by the likes of Apples & Snakes, Spread the Word, Nationwide, the RSC and the Royal Court. Their creative nonfiction piece on London's gentrification and social cleansing was published in the anthology '21 Stories From Britain’s Youth' (Unbound, 2019), edited by Nikesh Shukla, with the essay going viral after being featured in VICE and The Independent. More recently, they were shortlisted to the final twenty for the 2022 #MerkyBooks New Writers’ Prize and have had their poetry published in several anthologies. They (almost) completed an MA in Black British Literature at Goldsmiths University of London.

Parallel to their work in the arts, malakaï devises and delivers bespoke anti-racism and talent development training and a range of consultancy services– predominantly for clients in the cultural and charity sectors – which have included the Albany, Punchdrunk Enrichment, Young Vic, Rambert and Trinity Laban.