The poet, performer, actress, presenter and producer Lebogang Mashile, the daughter of exiled South Africans, was born in the U.S. in 1979. At the age of sixteen years she and her parents returned to their home country. It was while she was studying law and international relations at Wits University in Johannesburg that the desire to work as an artist took hold of her. In her work as a life skills facilitator for adolescents – focusing on topics like gender issues, teamwork and sexuality – poetry has been her preferred medium. Mashile regards its expressive power as the most effective tool to bring about those changes in mental attitude that are needed in the aftermath of the socio-political changes in post-apartheid South Africa. "The enemy isn’t really clear in the way it was before. It’s an incredibly sensitive, complicated struggle with many dimensions, but the site for that struggle is inside. ... The language of poetry comes from a place where that transformation has to begin, that sort of intuitive, creative, spiritual searching place that will be the fuel for any kind of transformation process.”

Mashile began to achieve recognition as one of South Africa's most popular young artists in 2002 when she performed her hip-hop inspired poetry at the Urban Voices Spoken Word and Music Festival to a large audience. In 2003 she co-founded the “Feel a Sistah!” Spoken Word Collective alongside Myesha Jenkins, Ntsiki Mazwai and Napo Masheane, which rapidly gained widespread popularity. Just one year later Mashile made her acting début in the Oscar nominated film "Hotel Rwanda". Moreover, she was the presenter and producer of the television programme "L'Atitude", a concept that she co-executive produced with Curious Pictures. Throughout its three seasons and seventy-eight episodes she introduced the viewers to the personal stories of a diverse cross section of South Africans and their relationships with their immediate surroundings. These insights were gained from her travels through South Africa. The series reached an audience of over two million households.

Her lyrical and gutsy poems in the collection "A Ribbon of Rhythm" (2005) also speak about life in the new South Africa. Issues such as the diversity and unity of the "Rainbow Nation", the status of women, violence and the fragility of individuals are all treated with a sense of urgency, humour and at times with melancholy and a certain rawness. Mashile’s self-produced album "Lebo Mashile Live!" combines her performance poetry with hip-hop, house and R & B.

In June of 2008, Mashile published her second anthology entitled “Flying Above the Sky”. This collection marks the poet’s first foray into self-publishing, a decision she undertook in order to own the copyright to her own work. Her lastest collection contains a far more mature and personal voice and deals with Mashile’s signature themes of gender, identity, spirituality, love and socio-political conditions in South Africa.

She returned to the theatre at 2008’s Standard Bank National Arts Festival in the stage adaptation of K. Sello Duiker’s ‘The Quiet Violence of Dreams’. She played Mmabatho, the only female character in a story that dissects contemporary South African masculinity. In October of 2008, Mashile wrote and performed in a cross-media and cross-generational collaboration with renowned choreographer Sylvia Glasser entitled ‘Threads’. This fusion of poetry, music and dance was created in celebration of Moving Into Dance Mophatong’s 30th anniversary. Moving Into Dance Mophatong was the first multiracial contemporary dance company in South Africa. In July of 2009, ‘Threads’ will be performed at the Standard Bank National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.

One can find Mashile’s thoughts in her monthly column, “In Her Shoes”, which she writes for True Love magazine. She can currently be seen on South African television screens as the presenter of ‘Drawing the Line’, a game show on SABC2 dealing with moral issues. The show is now in its second season.

Lebo Mashile has featured on numerous covers of South African entertainment and lifestyle magazines and was voted one of South Africa's Awesome Women of 2005 by Cosmopolitan Magazine. In 2006 and 2007, she was named one of the Top 100 youth in South Africa by the Mail & Guardian. In the same years, she was also named one of the top women in South Africa by the same publication. At the end of 2006, Mashile was named the top personality in television by The Star in their annual Top 100 list.

She has appeared beyond South Africa, to date in Kenya, Austria, Germany, Cuba, Jamaica, Ireland, Zimbabwe, the United States, Britain, Mozambique, Algeria and Switzerland.

In 2006 she was awarded the prestigious Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, the premier prize for African literature. The Jury characterised her poetry as of “a distinct oral flavour, developing oral poetry and performance beyond the boundaries of the poetry of the era of resistance”. In 2007, she was the recipient of the City Press/ Rapport Woman of Prestige Award. Mashile lives in Johannesburg.