Work
Plays, poems, performance and public art
Najee works between plays and poetry, telling stories that explore Black manhood and masculinity at the intersections of Blackness and queerness, through the lens of tenderness and home.
Theater
Latest work
Little Black Book
His debut play. Workshop premiere at 651 ARTS, December 2025.
Play Little Black Book, 2 minutes 10 secondsLittle Black Book
So I Can Love You
A one-act inspired by the life of a queer elder, read at Harlem School of the Arts in October 2025 as part of The Gatekeepers Collective’s Learning to Love Fellowship.
On stage: Stephon in Shaun Neblett’s Homage 5: Life After Death, BRIC, 2025.
Poetry
Najee’s poems have appeared in Poet Lore (2024) and That’s a Pretty Thing to Call It (2023). HuffPost covered “Ode to Litefeet,” his poem for the subway “Showtime” dancers, in 2017.
Performance and commissions
- Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2019
- The Public Theater, #BARS, 2019
- Lincoln Center, 2022
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2023
- National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Patrisse Cullors, 2018
- Harlem Stage, BRIC, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and Duke University
Reading room
Poems on film
Play Ode to Litefeet, 3 minutes 6 secondsOde to Litefeet
Play Hands, Kings, & Brooklyn Streets, 5 minutes 26 secondsHands, Kings, & Brooklyn Streets
Performed at Downtown Brooklyn Partnership's 5x10 Talks.
Play The Anti-Poem (After Amiri Baraka), 2 minutes 55 secondsThe Anti-Poem (After Amiri Baraka)
Play Black is..., 1 minute 19 secondsBlack is...
- Ode to LitefeetNajee Omar, 2017 · 3:06
- Hands, Kings, & Brooklyn StreetsNajee Omar, 2017 · 5:26
- The Anti-Poem (After Amiri Baraka)All Def Poetry, 2015 · 2:55
- Black is...Global Citizen, 2017 · 1:19
In print: poems in Poet Lore (2024) and in the anthology That’s a Pretty Thing to Call It (New Village Press, 2023).
Community
Public art and curation
- 2026Poetry in the Park, Fort Greene Park, curated with the Fort Greene Park Conservancy
- 2020The Neighborhood Project, 651 ARTS: founding curator of a program pairing emerging Black Brooklyn artists with neighborhood businesses
- 2018WE ARE BROOKLYN, a community block party closing his residency with the Intergenerational Community Arts Council
- 2018DIS OBEY, The Shed: co-developed a space for New York City youth to explore creative action