Kandia Crazy Horse (panelist/interviewee): Raised on a variety of music, from P-Funk to Supertramp, electric guitar evangelism to country and western, D.C. native Kandia Crazy Horse has worked as a rock critic for over a decade. Crazy Horse began writing, in her words, "simply because I could ‘speak so well’ like Colin Powell; read and write; and had a favorite band throughout the '90s that got awful press and a lot of disdain: the Black Crowes. As a New Southerner with a brain, I figured it was my job to champion them because they made great Black music." The Brooklyn-based writer was formerly the music editor at Creative Loafing in Charlotte, N.C., and has contributed to numerous publications, including Paper, Harp, Village Voice, Popmatters.com, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian . She supported Afrofuturism by editing Rip It Up : The Black Experience in Rock 'n' Roll (2004), noted for being "an eclectic mix of interviews and essays on Black rock 'n' roll--filled with fascinating information and provocative ideas." Crazy Horse was the 2008-2009 Anschutz Distinguished Fellow in American Studies at Princeton University, where she taught the course "Roll over Beethoven : Black Rock & Cultural Revolt," and organized and mounted a Southern rock symposium titled Radio Free Dixie-- or, De Dirty South Brokedown . Crazy Horse challenges Black readers to take pride in the history of Black rock, to "attempt to conserve it, don't just fritter it away and then lament it being lost forever after."
Rob Fields (panelist/interviewee): Self-described "Black rock evangelist" Rob Fields writes about Black rock and Black culture on his blog Bold as Love, which focuses on exploring, celebrating and evangelizing the growing music genre known as Black rock, Afro-punk or urban alternative (URB ALT). In conjunction with his blog, he runs a live event series, Bold as Live, which creates new opportunities for audiences to discover Black rock through shows, lectures, and discussions. He has worked professionally in the Black rock scene since the early 1990s, when he became Director of PR for the Black Rock Coalition. Following this, he went into artist management, working for Capitol Records and representing alternative Black artists such as trombonist Josh Roseman and M-Base cofounder Graham Haynes. With his background in marketing, Rob's interest lies in providing context for audiences (particularly Black audiences) to understand and enjoy what they're hearing in Black rock, and to help Black rock artists find ways to make Black rock matter in the marketplace. Rob has been a guest several times on NPR, and was a panelist at the 2009 SXSW Music Conference.
Reebee Garofalo (moderator/interviewer) is author of Rockin Out : Popular Music in the USA and has been a professor at the College of Public and Community Service at U Mass Boston since 1978. He is also affiliated with the American Studies Program. Professor Garofalo is an internationally known scholar of popular music studies who has written numerous articles on music and politics, racism, censorship, and the globalization of the music industry and has lectured widely on a broad range of subjects relating to the operations of the music industry. At CPCS he has been spearheading the Community Media and Technology Major-a cutting edge media and technology program designed to encourage a combination of technical proficiency and social vision.
Andy Hollinden (moderator/interviewer) teaches at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where he has developed several courses on popular music that have become widely favored by students on the campus. Such courses include the history of blues, rock, Frank Zappa, and Jimi Hendrix. In addition to Hollinden's professorial duties, he composes and produces music for videos and has performed and recorded with numerous rock bands. So far, he has written and produced seven CDs of his own music: Moving Earth from There to Here (1994), Boot rouge et swabs (1996), Heat to Fragrance (2000), Begging's Not Endearing (2002), Stick It in Your Sound Hole (2004), Trust Yourself (2006), and Grieve for the Living (2008). As one of the moderators for this conference, Hollinden brings a broad historical awareness of the roots of rock music, which is centered in the African American cultural tradition, along with the understanding of musical, racial and political negotiations between Black and White musicians who have been associated with the genre.
Maureen Mahon (moderator/interviewer) is an associate professor in the Department of Music at New York University. A cultural anthropologist, her research interests include African American history and culture; the construction and performance of race and gender in music; and the relationship between race, class, generation, and culture. She is the author of Right to Rock : The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race (Duke University Press, 2004) and has published articles on African Americans and rock music in academic venues and at EbonyJet.com . Her current research on the music and legacy of Black women in rock examines the intersection of gender, race, sexuality, and music production. She has held fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the American Association of University Women and has taught at Wesleyan University and UCLA.
Moe Mitchell (panelist/interviewee): A graduate of Howard University, Moe Mitchell has established himself as an activist and musician in the underground punk scene. His band Cipher, founded in 1996, is committed to opening critical spaces in underground music to reawaken the legacy of dissent in today's hardcore, weaving together elements of hardcore and metal with melodicism and politically radical lyrics to form a provocative, probing treatment of race, gender, and class. Mitchell was one of the four artists profiled in James Spooner's 2003 documentary Afro-punk, which explored issues of race identity within the punk scene. Cipher was formed in 1996 by longtime friends who wanted to bring something new to underground music. Elements of hardcore and metal are woven with politically radical lyrics to form a provocative, probing treatment of race, gender, and class. Cipher's most recent album, Children of God's Fire (2005), was released to critical acclaim as "an unrelenting, neo-revolutionary musical statement, transcending genres and provoking thoughts." As one reviewer put it, "In front of ambitiously bruising slabs of hardcore, Cipher front man Moe Mitchell ponders everything from patriarchy to the pharmaceutical industry." Cipher released their second album, The Joyous Collapse, in late 2009.
Netic (panelist/interviewee) is one of the founders as well as the lead vocalist of the Brooklyn-born band Game Rebellion. Before rhyming with Game Rebellion, he was a brain and cognitive sciences major at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he enrolled at the age of sixteen. Game Rebellion is an all-Black, all-outta-Brooklyn band whose metal, punk, and rudeboy skanking licks sound as credible and crunchy as their hip-hop lyrics and head nodding bounce. The lyrical prowess and production of Netic provide an unobstructed view of the angst of young rebels everywhere. Game Rebellion has been making big waves on the New York scene for about three years. In that short time they've ventured out even further to slam heads, rock houses and muddy the lily white waters of hip-hop and rock from NYC and Cali to Puerto Rico and the UK. They just may be the best-kept secret in music right now. Their album Searching for Rick Rubin (2008) explores classic hip-hop songs originally produced by studio legend Rick Rubin, re-imagined in Game Rebellion’s own style and mixed by J.period.
James Spooner (panelist/interviewee) is a filmmaker and fine artist. His award-winning debut feature documentary Afro-punk has screened at festivals in the U.S. and abroad, including the Toronto International Film Festival, New York's Urbanworld Film Festival, the American Black Film Festival, Mar del Plata International Film Festival (Argentina), and the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. The film has been incorporated in a program for high school students on race identity by the New Museum in New York, and has inspired an Afro-Punk Film Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which he has been co-curating. He was Resident Video Installation Artist at the Ase Dance Theatre Collective in New York, where he created new media works with a choreographer. Prior to working in film, he was a sculptor, whose work showed in galleries in New York and Seattle. He has also been an editor and an editing consultant. More recently, Spooner made his narrative film debut with White Lies, Black Sheep (2007).
Stew (panelist/interviewee) is a Tony Award-winning singer/songwriter/playwright from Los Angeles. Together with his collaborator Heidi Rodewald, Stew leads two critically acclaimed bands: The Negro Problem and Stew, both of which were formed in the early 1990s. By the turn of the millennium, The Negro Problem was enjoying considerable success, receiving Entertainment Weekly 's Album of the Year award in both 2000 and 2002. In 2004, Stew and Heidi Rodewald received the support of the Sundance Institute and The Public Theater to produce the musical Passing Strange, which has had successful runs at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, The Public Theater (NYC), and the Belasco Theatre on Broadway. More recently, Spike Lee directed a film version of Passing Strange, which is receiving glowing praise at film festivals and aired on PBS in the spring of 2010. As a result of his various creative ventures, Stew has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2008 Tony for Best Book of a Musical, two Obie awards for Best New Theater Piece and Best Ensemble as a cast member, and is a four-time Tony nominee. Stew was also the recipient of a 2009 Meet the Composer grant for a new multi-media work Making It, commissioned by St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York and scheduled for performance in 2010. Stew’s recorded output includes Post Minstrel Syndrome (1997), Joys and Concerns (1999), Guest Host (2000), The Naked Dutch Painter (2002), Welcome Black (2002), Something Deeper than these Changes (2003), and the cast album of Passing Strange (2008).
Tamar-kali (panelist/interviewee): Songwriter-vocalist-guitarist Tamar-kali came on the New York rock scene around 1993 while performing with the band Funkface. Shortly thereafter, she became the front woman for Song of Seven, another New York-based rock band. Eventually, Tamar-kali's strength as a woman in a male-dominated genre led to creative conflict and compelled her toward her own expression as a songwriter and vocalist, which resulted into her eclectic musical style. Her band 5ive Piece incorporates hard-core funk, melodic guitar riffs, dissonant harmonies, even and odd-metered grooves and unorthodox song forms. In addition to the instrumental styles of 5ive Piece, Tamar-kali's diverse vocal range allows her to execute warm, round, dark and raspy tones from low to high registers upon demand. She also performs with the string quartet Psycho Chamber Ensemble, which performs renditions of songs by 5ive Piece as well as those arranged and composed specifically for strings by Tamar-kali. Along with leading her diverse ensembles and heading up her own production company, Flaming Yoni Productions, Tamar-kali has worked with other artists in hip-hop and rock such as Outkast and Fishbone. In addition to appearing in the film Afro-punk, Tamar-kali has been featured in Vibe, Fader and Village Voice magazines.
Greg Tate (panelist) is an American author who has spent the last two decades formulating a critical language that has redefined African American cultural theory and writing. An essayist and long time staff writer for Village Voice, Tate has published widely, with writings on art, music, and culture appearing in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Spin, Artforum, The Nation, DownBeat, and Africa-based magazines such as Glendora Review and Chimurenga . The impact of Tate's writing lies in the seminal productive tensions he navigates between post-structural theory and Black cultural nationalism, academia and street culture. Tate has been inspired by Black innovators such as Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, George Clinton, and the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Furthermore, Tate has defied fixed notions about what constitutes authentic Black culture, and has inscribed a new radical trajectory that is simultaneously rebellious yet intelligently written. Now in his 50s, Tate continues to challenge cultural hegemony, writing on everything from hip-hop to YouTube . His books include Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992), Midnight Lightning : Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience (2003), and Everything but the Burden : What White People Are Taking from Black Culture (2003). He is also a founding member of the Black Rock Coalition and the conductor and music director of Burnt Sugar, a band that fuses jazz, rock, funk, and African music in a lyrical, exploratory and improvisational manner.
Kamara Thomas (panelist/interviewee), along with Matt Whyte, is one of the founding members of the band Earl Greyhound. Living and working in New York City, the pair began performing regularly as a duo. All along, they were crafting the sound and songs that would form the foundation for a colossal rock band influenced by the strident English three- and four-pieces of the '70s, the dark pop and heavy grooves of the '90s, and the transcendental, noisy acid sounds of modern rock. The band's first full-length album, Soft Targets, was recorded in Los Angeles and Brooklyn in 2005 and earned the group many fans and critical acclaim from publications including The New Yorker, Spin, Rolling Stone, Brooklyn Vegan, and Pitchfork . Even more so, the band's live show quickly drew heaps of attention and gained a steady reputation among critics and fans alike as a veritable rock-n-roll wrecking ball. Earl Greyhound toured relentlessly for the next two years all over the U.S., Canada, and Japan, and autumn 2007 was spent playing theatres as openers for the band's good friend Shooter Jennings, as well as for Soundgarden and Audioslave's Chris Cornell. In spring 2010 Earl Greyhound released their sophomore album Suspicious Package .
Suzanne Thomas (panelist/interviewee): A real deal blues guitarist and vocalist, Suzanne Thomas no stranger to the blues. Life for Thomas started out as an abandoned biracial child in South Korea, where she lived in an orphanage until an American family adopted her into the States at five. She began studying organ at the age of six and, as fate would have it, Thomas was given her first music lessons and introduction to the organ by the great Jimmy Smith. Thomas abandoned dental school at Ohio State to attend music school in Los Angeles. After time in all-female groups such as School Boy Crush, Software, and PMS, Thomas formed Crank, a 3-piece hard rock band that shared the stage with Ice T and Body Count, Fishbone, and Macy Gray. Thomas has also been hired out as a guitarist to several funk and R&B bands, notably doubling on guitar and bass in the Grammy-winning band A Taste of Honey. She took second place in the 7th annual Jimi Hendrix contest, and played in Japan, France, and New York at various music festivals and events including the Manhattan Music Center. Thomas currently performs with her band The Blues Church.
Linda Tillery (panelist/interviewee): Before becoming a prominent figure in women's music in the 1990s, San Francisco native Linda Tillery began her singing career in the 1960s with the gender and racially integrated psychedelic/soul band The Loading Zone, which was modeled somewhat after Sly & the Family Stone. After two albums with that band, Tillery released her solo debut, Sweet Linda Divine, on CBS in 1970 to enthusiastic reviews and high praise. She spent most of the 1970s singing and playing drums on over forty albums, including those by Mary Watkins and Teresa Trull. Having become a staff musician and producer at Olivia Records, Tillery released her second solo album, a self-titled effort, on the label in 1978, garnering a Bay Area Music Award for Best Independently Produced Album. Tillery has twice gone on to win Bay Area Jazz awards for Outstanding Female Vocalist. In subsequent years, Tillery collaborated with female musical powerhouses including June Millington, Deidre McCalla, Barbara Higbie, and Margie Adam, as well as on the Olivia Records 10th anniversary album, Meg/Cris Live at Carnegie (1983). In 1985, Tillery released Secrets on her own 411 label which returned her to center stage. In recent years, she has assembled a large band, Skin Tight, which plays jazzy, funky blues. She has also performed with the ZaSu Pitts Memorial Orchestra and has branched out into radio, film, theater, and television commercials. She has worked for the National Endowment for the Arts and appeared with artists ranging from Santana, Kenny Loggins, and Huey Lewis to the Turtle Island String Quartet, Bobby McFerrin, and Holly Near. In 1992, Tillery created the Cultural Heritage Choir as an outlet for her desire to perform the traditional spiritual music of African American slaves and their descendants.
Ike Willis (panelist/interviewee) first met Frank Zappa while studying political science at Washington University. Willis volunteered to help with the concert committee just so he could get a backstage pass to meet Frank Zappa. As a result of this meeting in 1978, Willis became Zappa's lead singer and rhythm guitarist for nearly fifteen years. In addition to touring, Willis performed on Zappa's albums Joe's Garage, Tinsel Town Rebellion, and You Are What You Is . He also played the title character and narrator in Zappa's off-Broadway musical, Thing-Fish . Willis' distinct baritone vocals coupled with his melodic guitar style continues to solidify the musical legacy of Frank Zappa, which Willis promotes not only through his own music, but also via performances with ensembles around the world that perform Frank Zappa's music, such as Bogus Pomp, Project/Object, Ugly Radio Rebellion, and The Central Scrutinizer Band.
From the guide to the Reclaiming the Right to Rock : Black Experiences in Rock Music Collection, 2008-2010, (Indiana University, Archives of African American Music and Culture (AAAMC) http://www.indiana.edu/~aaamc)
