Pretty Ugly: A Harlem Situation

Brad Bathgate aka BLUE was born in Harlem, but raised as a military brat between New York, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Germany. Upon returning to the states from Germany as a teenager, he experienced culture shock and quickly developed a discerning eye, which lends to his writing today. Growing up during the early stages of Hip Hop, he has always been fascinated with words. However, it wasn’t until 1998, when he attended a poetry reading at the Sugar Shack, in Harlem when he found his calling and began to take writing seriously. After experiencing the other poet’s manipulation of words, Blue realized that writing was what he wanted to do, concluding there was no limit to what he could say or write, provided it was creative.