"Back talk," Javonte Adams utters into the microphone, beckoning a response from the dimly lit, crowded room.

There's a slight pause before the audience roars back: "Talk back!"

The exchange --- meant to foster the crowd's excitement and participation --- is just part of the show, a performance from the poetry collective Black on Black Rhyme. Black on Black Rhyme has been playing to standing-room-only audiences every first and third Wednesday at VENU since Adams brought it here four months ago.

"People needed to have something like this here," Adams says, "and that is obvious from the response it has gotten thus far."

The collective was started by Keith "Keboi" Rodgers in Tallahassee, Florida, in 1998. Originally labeled "Poetic Drive-By" for the way poets would drop by to perform, it was held at Rodgers' apartment until the popularity grew and a new venue and name were selected in 1999. The name Black on Black Rhyme was chosen to reclaim the phrase "black on black crime," so often used by the media.

"It is our goal to start a Black on Black Rhyme in every city in America," says Adams, who brought the movement to Rochester after being recruited here for a job at Bausch and Lomb in 2006. "We didn't coin the phrase, but we like to say it is ‘edu-tainment,' especially at times like these, where African Americans' roles have been desecrated, weakened, or marginalized, and there's no content there anymore. In this entertainment, there is also an educational value."

Every show has free admission and features performances by local band Black August and poetry performances by prominent African-American poets. There is no open mic, but Adams encourages local poets to talk to him at the show about auditioning.

"We tout ourselves as showing only the best in the nation, and we need to protect that," Adams says.

On February 21, Tony Award-winning poet Georgia Me ("Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam") will take the stage.

"She's full of energy, wit, sass, and a southern eloquence that, all combined, make for an entertaining person and poetry," Adams says.

Doors open at 7 p.m., and the show begins at 8 p.m. "Come early, because there is limited seating," Adams says.

VENU is located at 151 Saint Paul Street downtown. For more information on Black on Black Rhyme, visit Black on Black's website.