Beat poet and socio-political commentator
Langston Hughes is born in Joplin, Missouri, USA. Although priomarily associated with the written word, Hughes will also enjoy a recording career which includes not only his own spoken word collections for Smithsonian-Folkways but many instances where his texts were utilized by other artists, sometimes in direct collaboration with Hughes and at other times after the fact. While heavily associated with black jazz and blues, the writings of Hughes have also shown up in many other genres.