Al Elliott

Adolphus Alexander Elliott Jr (born September 29, 1972), is a poet, performer and educator, known on stage as Thed Weller.

Elliott is the brother of comedian and former news anchor Eunice Elliott and began rapping while still a student at Dunbar Elementary School, finding that he didn't stutter when he rapped. He adopted his long-time stage name, originally styled as "The Bessemer Dweller", and later shortened to "The Dweller," after a telemarketer misread it as "Thed Weller". He began using that name for spoken word appearances, and later dropped the previous iterations.

He graduated from Jess Lanier High School in Bessemer and completed a bachelor's degree in elementary education and a master's degree (2000) in child development at UAB. He conducts his cultural projects under the name of "Ellication Labs". Among those is founding and facilitating the "It Is Written" series of crowd-sourced songwriting events. He was a presenter for TEDx Birmingham in 2016 and a graduate of REV Birmingham's 2017 Co.Starters class. In 2019 he joined the Steel Magic Theatre company as an actor. He also appeared in the 2019 feature film "Sword of Trust".

Elliott is currently on faculty at Phillips Academy.

References

• Shirell, Nichole (April 27, 2017) "It Is Written! A Candid Conversation With Thed Weller" The Odyssey

External links

• Al Elliott website