In high school he read the work of Amiri Baraka and Langston Hughes, which inspired him to write poetry.
[4] While in college at California State University, Los Angeles, Johnson won first place in Drama Interpretation at the 2002 American Forensic Association National Individual Events Tournament.
[5] He earned his Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University with a dissertation on "race, gender, and sexuality in slam and spoken word poetry communities".
[15] After completing his Ph.D. Johnson worked as a USC Visions and Voices postdoctoral fellow in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.
[17] His academic research examines poetry communities in Los Angeles, contrasting their democratic possibilities against the experience of struggle and privilege.