Gabriel Kittle-Cervine was born in mid-morning, on a Wednesday in October 1995, somewhere on the westside of Santa Cruz, CA. He still lives and works here today.

Since a young age Gabe has been engaged in the arts. In 2008, Gabe was among the Motion Pacific breaking students who got to perform at GaryFest in Watsonville, honoring the life of local dance mentor, and a founding member of the acclaimed Jabbawockeez Crew, Gary “Gee-One” Kendell. Gabe continued on to choreograph numerous pieces for the Fusion Dance Company.

As a young actor and playwright, Gabe got to co-write and perform original work at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival in Scotland at 16 years old, and independently produced a series of vignettes at the Broadway Playhouse later that year. Gabe has written multiple unpublished one-acts, and has acted in well over two dozen productions.

Gabe briefly attended Emerson College in Boston for a BA in Theater Studies, but found himself spending most of his days selling typewriter poems and chapbooks in the Harvard subway station. This led to a traveling documentary project with Jake Cushnir in 2014, inspired by their short film collab “I Write Because I Must”, which was picked up by the website Poets & Writers.

Ultimately choosing to leave school, he joined his fellow poets in Santa Cruz who were developing a “philanthro-pup” called the Art Bar & Cafe, where Gabe worked until it closed down at the end of 2015. During this time, Gabe also qualified for Santa Cruz’s National Poetry Slam Team in 2014 and 2015, competing at the competition in 2015, where they placed in the top 5 nationwide.

A founding member of, the late, Word Church poetry mic in Santa Cruz between 2013-2020, hosting and organizing the space for well over half of those years. Gabe has over a decade of experience producing and hosting Poetry Slams, Hip Hop jams, live music concerts, art markets, workshops, open mics and multi-media art exhibitions.

Gabe has 4 books of published poetry; his debut collection I Like Being Dead (2022), a pocket book of his four-part poem Blank Page Boy (2024), and the first of a new annual collection of workshop prompts and free writes, Rite Life vol. 1 (2025) and Rite Life vol. 2 (2026). Gabe is currently working on a new full length poetry manuscript, “say { god } without using words” coming Spring 2026.

As a rhymesayer, he first stepped into the conversation in 2017 with a free mixtape called Betray Whiteness. Since then he’s released a handful of EPs, including the Lost Boys movie inspired Wholly Crossed (2020), and Days End (2023), plus a handful of singles and collaborations — today, Uncle Gabe is currently developing their first self-produced project, entitled TEETH.

In education, Gabe has guest lectured or led workshops at Harbor High, UC Santa Cruz, Tannery Arts Center, CSU Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz Public Libraries, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, as well as over a dozen venues in and around the city of Santa Cruz. In 2023, Gabe’s poem “the breaking” (from I Like Being Dead) was used for semantic study of gender identity within the 11th grade English curriculum at Pacific Collegiate School.

Gabe was trained by People’s Institute for Survival & Beyond in the practice of antiracism training. Beginning in 2020, he began building an online tool for white people to learn about the origins of race and racism called www.BetrayingWhiteness.org which was built to prime newcomers to the essential humanitarian work of undoing the oppressive racial constructs that keep us in conflict.

Currently, Gabe lives in the Live Oak neighborhood of Santa Cruz, works at Pacific Collegiate School as the Alumni Liaison, and at SC Labs in the Heavy Metals. He hosts a live on-air show for 90.7 FM KSQD Community Radio in Santa Cruz called “Just 4 The Record” which celebrates vinyl culture, as well as local Santa Cruz community works and working artists in the area. Gabe also facilitates a monthly public writing group in Evergreen Cemetery with the Santa Cruz MAH every last Sunday.

In 2026, look out for a new poetry mic coming to downtown Santa Cruz this March, and much more!

For inquiries visit the Bookings page, and click here for Uncle Gabe’s full discography.

Stay Born Y’all!