Jason King
Chair, NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music

Jason King, PhD, is the Chair of New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, a training program for music industry leaders and creative entrepreneurs. Jason is a musician, performer, producer, songwriter, scholar, curator, journalist and a widely published scholar, writing on the cultural politics of artists like Beyonce, Drake, Roberta Flack and Luther Vandross. He is a regular contributor to publications like Pitchfork, Billboard, Slate, Los Angeles Times, Spin, NPR Music; and he is the author of The Michael Jackson Treasures, a Barnes and Noble exclusive biography.  Jason has hosted and produced video and radio series, as well as podcasts, for media platforms like NPR Music and CNN: those series have featured artists like Dua Lipa, Alicia Keys, Moses Sumney, and Miguel. Jason has been an expert witness in high-profile legal cases for Drake, Katy Perry, Jay Z, Timbaland, Lady Gaga, and Madonna. He is currently working on a biography of Freddie Mercury, and producing and directing documentaries

Jeriel Johnson
Musician & Senior Director, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, Universal Music Group

Jeriel Johnson is a music industry veteran, servant leader with a passion for curating innovative programs at the intersection of art and life. A Philadelphia native and graduate of Berklee College of Music, Johnson worked for global brands such as The Walt Disney Studios and NBCUniversal before being tapped as Head of Urban Music at the Recording Academy in 2014, where he would oversee the awards process for the R&B, Rap, and Reggae categories for the GRAMMY Awards®. Johnson would later be promoted to Executive Director of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the Academy, leading membership & Industry relations, and creating professional development programs for music creatives and executives in the DMV area. In 2019 he created the inaugural Recording Academy Washington, D.C. Chapter Block Party. In 2020, Johnson co-founded the Academy’s Black Music Collective, an advisory body of iconic industry artists and executives including Quincy Jones, Debra Lee, Jimmy Jam, H.E.R., D-Nice and others, and served as the group’s Executive Sponsor. He would executive produce and host the inaugural Black Music Collective GRAMMY Week Celebration with special guests Issa Rae, John Legend, Janelle Monáe and more. Currently, Johnson is Senior Director of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging at Universal Music Group where he leads the team’s Global Marketplace and Social Impact strategies. He is a Prince George’s County, Maryland 40 Under 40 honoree, has been featured in Billboard Magazine, Variety, Berklee Today Magazine, and in 2021 was named a Billboard Magazine Change Agent for being a leader who stepped up during a year of turmoil. Johnson has served as a guest lecturer at the American Dramatic School for the Arts, University of Maryland and has produced and moderated panels at Essence Festival, SXSW, BET Week, Roots Picnic, The NSO, and The GRAMMY Museum.

Jonathan McCrory
Executive Artistic Director, National Black Theatre

Jonathan McCrory is a two Obie Award-winning, Harlem-based artist who has served as Executive Artistic Director at National Black Theatre since 2012 under the leadership of CEO, Sade Lythcott. He has directed numerous professional productions and concerts. He has been acknowledged as an exceptional leader additionally through Craine’s New York Business 2020 Notable LGBTQ Leaders and Executives. In 2013, he was awarded the Emerging Producer Award by the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and the Torch Bearer Award by theatrical legend Woodie King Jr. He is a founding member of the collaborative producing organizations Harlem9, Black Theatre Commons, The Jubilee, Next Generation National Network and The Movement Theatre Company. McCrory sits on the National Advisory Committee for Howlround.com and was a member of the original cohort for ArtEquity. A Washington, DC native, McCrory attended the Duke Ellington School of the Arts and New York University’s TISCH School of the Arts.

José James 
Vocalist & Co-Founder of Rainbow Blonde Records

A jazz artist for the hip-hop generation, José James artfully blurs the lines between traditional and contemporary jazz, hip-hop, soul, funk, pop and rock. He has released 10critically-acclaimed albums in as many years for labels such as Brownswood, Impulse, Blue Note and his own co-founded Rainbow Blonde Records, and is the recipient of both the Edison Award and L'Académie du Jazz Grand Prix. James has collaborated with many notable artists such as Flying Lotus, Robert Glasper, Lalah Hathaway, Ledisi, Aloe Blacc and Jason Moran. A celebrated international performer, James has presented his work at at venues such as The Kennedy Center, Hollywood Bowl, Ancienne Belgique and Billboard Live Tokyo, and has performed as a guest artist with McCoy Tyner, Laura Mvula and the Jazz at Lincoln Center, Melbourne Symphony and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestras.

Kaisha S. Johnson 
Founding Director, Women of Color in the Arts

Kaisha S. Johnson is Founding Director of Women of Color in the Arts (WOCA), a  national grassroots organization dedicated to creating racial equity in the  performing arts. Kaisha co-founded WOCA over ten years ago to help amplify the  voice and visibility of women of color arts leaders with the intent of cultivating a  field of shared power. Most prior to WOCA, Kaisha served for over a decade in  NYC organizing in immigrant artist communities and presenting cultural traditions  from around the world, affirming the values of self-determination and  representation. In her role at WOCA, Kaisha serves as a thought partner to  institutions to help foster understanding around equity and race and their impact  on organizational culture, structure, and systems. Kaisha initially got her start in  the arts in her hometown of Houston, Texas where she proudly resides. Kaisha is  a staunch advocate for the arts, believing in its innate ability to create social  change. 

Kamilah Forbes
Director & Producer and Executive Producer, Apollo Theater

Kamilah Forbes is an award-winning director and producer for theater and television. She currently  serves as the Executive Producer at the Apollo Theater. As a proud Howard University alum, she has won  numerous awards for both directing and producing, including the 2019 NBTF Larry Leon Hamlin  Producer Award and an NAACP Image Award. Directing credits include “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,”  written by Lynn Nottage “Blood Quilt” written by Katori Hall, and “Sunset Baby” written by Dominique  Morrisseau. She has also worked closely with Kenny Leon on “The Wiz Live,” “A Raisin in the Sun,”  “Mountaintop,” and “Stick Fly” on Broadway. Her work in television includes the Tony Award and  Peabody Award-winning series “Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry and her most recent directorial  work “Between the World and Me” on HBO. Forbes is currently working on the Broadway premiere of  “Soul Train” alongside Questlove, Dominique Morrisseau, and Camille A. Brown. 

Kiel Adrian Scott
Writer-Director and Producer

Award-winning writer-director Kiel Adrian Scott's film and television works are examinations of the psychological and systemic ramifications of being marginalized and undervalued in modern society. Most recently Scott directed five episodes of the second season of OWN’s critically acclaimed series David Makes Man. In 2019 Scott directed three episodes of the series’ Peabody Award-winning first season. In 2018 Scott helmed BET’s hit miniseries The Bobby Brown Story, which won him an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Television Movie, Limited Series or Dramatic Special. In 2016, Scott collaborated with his long-time mentor Academy Award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee, as a co-writer on Lee’s video game film NBA 2K16’s Livin’ Da Dream. A two-time finalist in the Student Academy Awards, Scott’s short film works have won several major film festivals, awards and distinctions, among them: the American Black Film Festival’s HBO Short Film Competition, The Urbanworld Film Festival’s Best Narrative Short and Audience Awards, the Saatchi & Saatchi “NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE” Producer’s Award, and the Directors Guild of America Student Film Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement.

Kyle Abraham
Choreographer & Artistic Director of A.I.M

Kyle Abraham (Artistic Director, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham) and his choreography have been featured in O Magazine, Ebony, Vogue, Kinfolk, Document Journal, and several other publications. He is the proud recipient of a 2016 Doris Duke Award, 2012 United States Fellowship, several coveted Princess Grace awards including the 2018 Statue Award and in 2013, he was named MacArthur Fellow.

Over the past several years, Abraham has been commissioned by a variety of dance companies, including The Royal Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, New York City Ballet (NYCB), Paul Taylor American Modern Dance (PTAMD), and National Ballet of Cuba, among others. Highlights include Abraham’s collaborations with NYCB—When We Fell, which The New York Times reviewed as “among the most beautiful dance films of the pandemic” and The Runaway, which was recognized as one of the “Best Dance(s) of 2018.” Abraham also created Only the Lonely in 2019 for PTAMD, being selected as the final choreographer Paul Taylor commissioned before his passing. Additionally, Abraham has been commissioned by Fall for Dance Festival, premiering to be seen, a solo for American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Calvin Royal III in 2020 and Ash, a solo work for American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Misty Copeland in 2019.

The University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance named Abraham to the Claude and Alfred Mann Endowed Professorship in Dance starting Fall 2021. He is the Artistic Director of A.I.M, the internationally acclaimed New York-based dance company.

In 2011, OUT Magazine labeled him as the “best and brightest creative talent to emerge in New York City in the age of Obama”.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph 
Artist, Cultural Strategist & Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. He is also the winner of the 2011 Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, and an inaugural recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. In pursuit of affirmations of Black life in the public realm, he co-founded the Life is Living Festival for Youth Speaks, and created the installation “Black Joy in the Hour of Chaos” for Creative Time. Joseph’s opera libretto, We Shall Not Be Moved, was named one of 2017’s “Best Classical Music Performances” by The New York Times. His newest opera, “Watch Night”, will premiere in New York’s Perelman Center under the direction of Bill T. Jones in the Fall of 2023. His piece “The Just and the Blind” investigates the crisis of over-sentencing in the prison industrial complex, and premiered at a sold out performance at Carnegie Hall in March 2019. Bamuthi is currently at work on commissions for Yale University, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera, and the Washington National Opera as well as a new collaboration with NYC Ballet Artistic Director Wendy Whelan. An emergent onscreen talent, he is among the featured performers in HBO’s screen adaptation of “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehesi Coates. Formerly the Chief of Program and Pedagogy at YBCA in San Francisco, Bamuthi currently serves as the Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at The Kennedy Center.

Omari Rush 
Executive Director, CultureSource

Omari Rush engages the arts as a passion and profession, and in each mode enjoys discovery and deepening impacts. As executive director of CultureSource in Detroit, he advances efforts to have creative expression thrive in communities. His complementary civic service ranges from recently completing an appointment to the State of Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (serving three governors, two as council chair) to currently being board chair of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and a board member of Arts Midwest in Minneapolis and the Lewis Prize for Music. A lapsed clarinetist, Omari now uses his voice to co-host a monthly arts-focused radio show on NPR affiliate WEMU-FM.

Rashida Bumbray
Choreographer, Curator and Director of Culture and Art, Open Society Foundations

Rashida Bumbray is director of Culture and Art at the Open Society Foundations. Since joining Open Society in 2015, Bumbray has organized the Arts Forum: Art, Public Space, and Closing Societies and launched the Soros Arts Fellowship. Bumbray began her curatorial career at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2001-2006). As associate curator at The Kitchen (2006-2012), Bumbray organized critically acclaimed exhibitions and commissions by Leslie Hewitt, Simone Leigh, and Kyle Abraham, among many others. She was guest curator of Creative Time’s public art exhibition Funk, God, Jazz and Medicine: Black Radical Brooklyn in 2014. Bumbray is an accomplished choreographer whose practice draws from traditional African American vernacular and folk forms. Her performances have been presented by Tate Modern, the New Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harlem Stage, Project Row Houses, and Summer Stage. Bumbray is a 2019 United States Artists Fellow and an Inaugural Civic Practice Artist-in-Residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Sade Lyhcott
CEO, National Black Theatre

Harlem native Sade Lythcott is the Chief Executive Officer of the historic National Black Theatre (NBT), the nation’s first revenue generating Black Arts complex and one of the longest run theaters by a woman of color. Sade is the daughter of the late Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, founder of NBT and legendary champion of African-American arts and culture. Sade currently serves as the chair of the Coalition of Theaters of Color, an alliance of 52 theaters across New York City; founded by Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee in 2004 to combat the systemic inequities in the field and to ensure that theaters of color are funded equitably. As a leader and staunch advocate for the cultural sector, Lythcott proudly serves on the national board of advisors for Art in a Changing America, HueArts NYC and has served New York State on Governor’s Task Force to reopen live performance statewide after its shuttering in 2020. Lythcott also co-leads Culture @ 3, an unprecedented space that brings together more than 700 non profit cultural leaders from across NYC and friends in government to help navigate pressing fieldwide issues of the ever shifting cultural landscape. Sade’s activism work has been written about in national publications including the New York Times, American Theater Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar and Essence magazine and enjoys guest lecturing at colleges and universities across the country including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and NYU. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Key to Harlem for her excellence in the Arts, the Networks Journal’s top 40 under 40 award, the Legacy Award from Black Theatre Network and the Cultural Icon award by Harlem Fashion Week. In 2012, Sade wrote and produced the highly acclaimed musical A Time To Love, garnering three AUDELCO nominations and is currently in development in partnership with the world famous Apollo Theater.

Stephanie McKee-Anderson 
Artist, Organizer, Cultural Strategist and Executive Artistic Director, Junebug Productions

Stephanie V. McKee-Anderson is an artist, organizer, cultural strategist and the Executive Artistic Director of Junebug Productions Inc, an organization birthed out of the Free Southern Theater (FST), which was formed in 1963 as one of many cultural arms of the Civil Rights Movement. FST would eventually become a tremendous influence on the the BlackArts Movement. Mckee has a long history of creating powerful performances that she strategically leverages for social change.  McKee is a 2018 Urban Bush Women Choreographic Fellowship recipient and under McKee’s leadership, Junebug Productions was a recipient of a Surdna Foundation's Artist engaged in social change award for Homecoming Project, and the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) Theater Project grant for Gomela to Return/Movement of Our Mother Tongue which was her directorial debut. McKee serves on the board and executive committee of National Performance Network, is a board member of The Association of Performing Arts Presenters and is a member of Alternate ROOTS. Among her other achievements she is a proud 2007 New Voices emerging Leader alumnus, a 2015 Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) Leadership Fellow alum and has served as a Group Leader for the 2017 APAP Leadership Fellow Co-hort. Ms. McKee is deeply committed to creating work that supports social justice and aligns with the Free Southern Theater and Junebug legacy.