Students will have the opportunity this Thursday, Feb. 26, at 8:30 p.m. to see mass communication junior Brett Lincoln and Florida’s word smith Roderick Borisade, better known as Odd?Rod, perform in the Clark Student Center Atrium as one of the University Programming Board’s last Black History Month events.

“I am very excited to have the opportunity to open up for this artist, whom I really admire,” Lincoln said.

Lincoln expects to dictate two poems of his own before a crowd of at least 50 people, hopefully preparing them for the heavier topics to be addressed by Odd?Rod.

“There is going to be a call to social consciousness and for there to be more care, more loving kindness and more respect, whether it be from peer to peer, father to daughter, or mother to son,” Lincoln said.

According to his website, Odd?Rod is known for his use of mental pictures and role as a social activist, touring college campuses regularly to spread words of encouragement and give deeper meaning to the value of education.

“I think it’s important for college students to be exposed to every aspect of art, not necessarily what’s mainstream, but in regard to the underground, [because] this is what’s real,” Lincoln said. “These are the topics that, in some cases, people don’t want to talk about—that don’t sound pretty on a page. That’s life, and that’s what we’re trying to put across in our poems.”