The 2023 Shakespeare Festival featured Devon Glover known internationally as “The Sonnet Man.”

Glover sets the works of Shakespeare to hip-hop music. He samples the writer’s words and interprets them in his rap songs.

Glover is a teacher in Brooklyn. He has been using music to help teach students for over a decade. His first audience was the math class he taught. From there Glover discovered how Shakespeare’s works had verse that he could apply to hip-hop.

Since then, “The Sonnet Man” has performed hip-hop versions of Shakespeare’s works at multiple festivals including the Soul Rebellion Hip Hop Festival in Negril, Jamaica. He took the stage at South Dakota’s festival in Vermillion on June 15.

Glover said the way he modernizes the language of Shakespeare makes it more digestible to students as they study the different things his work contributes to the writing world.