The Nuyorican Cafe is one of slam's original homes. Poetry Slam guru, Bob Holeman began slams there after seeing Marc Smith's brainchild in action at The Greenmill circa 1989. Since Holeman's introduction of slamming to New York, the teams sent from the Nuyorican have been a formidable verbal force on the slam scene. The Nuyorican team was severely trounced by Team Manhatten at the 1998 National Poetry Slam where they became our nation's reigning spoken word champions.

A term to describe New Yorkers of Puerto Rican descent, dating back (maybe) to the 60s coming-of-age era of a large number of first-generation Americans, whose parents had emigrated to NYC from Puerto Rico in the post World War II years. If there were no "Nuyorican", there would be no "Nuyorican Cafe", no? Someone else can insert their own bodega, Iris Chacon, rice-and-beans, or Herman Badillo joke here.