Caleb “The Negro Artist” Rainey is an author, performer, and event producer. His debut book, Look, Black Boy, was awarded first prize in the North Street Book Prize, and his second book, Heart Notes, was published in 2019. He released two spoken word albums and produced his first short film, Willing to Grow, as a part of the Brucemore Artisan Studio program. In 2024, Caleb was the recipient of the Iowa Author Award for Poetry. Within the same year, Nik Heftman and The Seven Times production company created a documentary about Caleb titled The Negro Artist. Caleb is the winner of several slams across the United States, and competed in the 2023 UNESCO Slam-O-Vision global poetry slam where he ranked 7th worldwide. Videos of his performances can be found on his YouTube channel, Write About Now, and Button Poetry. When he is not writing and performing, he is actively curating a community of spoken word poets in Iowa City through his high school program, IC Speaks, and producing events like the Mic Check Poetry Fest.