Ahya Simone

Last updated

Ahya Simone (born 1994) [1] is an American multidisciplinary artist. Based in Detroit, she is best known for her work as a harpist and for creating and starring in the web series Femme Queen Chronicles. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Simone was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. [3] She grew up singing in the church choir and started to play harp as a student at Cass Technical High School when she was 16. [3]

While attending college at Wayne State University she came out as transgender. [3] She was the principal harpist for the university's symphony. [4]

Career

Music

After college Simone sought out ways to perform outside her previous experience "playing 300-year-old dead people music, and being around all these white suburban kids who had access I never did, who’d been playing classical music since they were two years old." [1] She began to cover r&b and soul music, and named Dorothy Ashby as one of her biggest influences. [4] This led her to collaborate with fellow Detroiter dream hampton, to score hampton's short film Treasure (2018). [1] Simone received a Kresge Artist Fellowship in 2018 and was the first Black trans woman recipient. [5] That year she also teamed up with Kelela on Take Me a_Part, the Remixes . [1]

In addition to her work as a harpist, Simone is a singer-songwriter whose music fuses r&b, jazz, experimental, and electronic. [6] Simone released the single "Frostbite" in 2020. [7] She later released a music video for the song featuring local artists Kesswa and Supercoolwicked. [8] In 2021, she collaborated with cktrl on his single "mazes". [9]

Other work

In 2015 she founded the Trans Sistas of Color Project Detroit to provide support to trans women of color after the murder of Amber Monroe. [10] Through the organization she launched the comedy web series Femme Queen Chronicles that follows four trans women in Detroit, which she likened to Living Single and Chewing Gum. [2] Simone developed the series in part to "disrupt the narrative of black tragedy without sanitizing the very real tragedies that happen to us." [10] She is the director, writer, and stars in the series. [2] Femme Queen Chronicles debuted in 2018 and received positive critical reception. [10] She received financial support from the Knight Foundation to develop the series. [2] As of 2021, she is working with Janet Mock to adapt the show for television. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender Day of Remembrance</span> Day to memorialize transphobia victims

The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR), also known as the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, has been observed annually from its inception on November 20 to memorialize those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia. The day was founded to draw attention to the continued violence directed toward transgender people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mickalene Thomas</span> American painter

Mickalene Thomas is a contemporary African-American visual artist best known as a painter of complex works using rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. Thomas's collage work is inspired from popular art histories and movements, including Impressionism, Cubism, Dada, the Harlem Renaissance, and selected works by the Afro-British painter Chris Ofili. Her work draws from Western art history, pop art, and visual culture to examine ideas around femininity, beauty, race, sexuality, and gender.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katastrophe (rapper)</span> American rapper

Rocco Kayiatos, known professionally as Katastrophe and in some later releases as Rocco Katastrophe, is an American rapper.

Tamar-kali is a critically acclaimed American rock singer-songwriter and composer based in Brooklyn, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dream Hampton</span> American filmmaker and producer

dream hampton is an American filmmaker, producer, and writer. Her work includes the 2019 Lifetime documentary series Surviving R. Kelly, which she executive produced, and the 2012 An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, on which she served as co-executive producer. She co-wrote Jay-Z's 2010 memoir Decoded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laverne Cox</span> American actress and LGBT advocate (born 1972)

Laverne Cox is an American actress and LGBT advocate. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, becoming the first transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category, and the first to be nominated for an Emmy Award since composer Angela Morley in 1990. In 2015, she won a Daytime Emmy Award in Outstanding Special Class Special as executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, making her the first trans woman to win the award. In 2017, she became the first transgender person to play a transgender series regular on U.S. broadcast TV as Cameron Wirth on CBS's Doubt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mother Cyborg</span>

Diana J. Nucera, better known by her stage name Mother Cyborg, is a Detroit-based artist, DJ, and educator. Born in Chicago and raised in Frankfort, Indiana. Nucera began using the name Mother Cyborg on October 11, 2011, while DJing at a Halloween party. Mother Cyborg continued DJing, hosting a monthly gig, deemed the "Temple of Cyborg", at Detroit's Temple Bar as well as performing her own music live. Mother Cyborg released her debut album Pressure Systems on April 29, 2017.

Magdalene "Leni" Sinclair is an American photographer and radical political activist. She has photographed rock and jazz musicians since the early 1960s. She was the co-founder of the White Panther Party along with John Sinclair and Pun Plamondon. She was also Minister of Education of the party. She lives in Detroit.

Misogynoir is a term referring to the combined force of anti-Black racism and misogyny directed towards black women. The term was coined by black feminist writer Moya Bailey in 2008 to address misogyny directed toward black transgender and cisgender women in American visual and popular culture. The concept of misogynoir is grounded in the theory of intersectionality, which analyzes how various social identities such as race, gender, class, age, ability, and sexual orientation interrelate in systems of oppression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Aguhar</span> American artist and activist

Mark Cagaanan Aguhar was an American activist, writer and multimedia fine artist known for her multidisciplinary work about gender, beauty and existing as a racial minority, while being body positive and transgender femme-identified. Aguhar was made famous by her Tumblr blog that questioned the mainstream representation of the "glossy glorification of the gay white male body".

<i>Star</i> (TV series) 2016 American music drama television series

Star is an American music drama television series created by Lee Daniels and Tom Donaghy for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It revolves around three talented young singers who navigate the music business on their road to success and stars Jude Demorest, Brittany O'Grady and Ryan Destiny. The series, which is set in Atlanta, consists of original music, along with musical fantasy sequences, as dreams of the future. Queen Latifah, Benjamin Bratt, Amiyah Scott and Quincy Brown co-star.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African-American LGBTQ community</span> African-American population within the LGBT community

The African-American LGBT community, otherwise referred to as the Black American LGBT community, is part of the overall LGBTQ culture and overall African-American culture. The initialism LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.

Gilda Snowden was an African-American artist, educator and mentor from Detroit, Michigan.

Patricia Terry-Ross is a harpist and music educator who was named Kresge Eminent Artist for 2017. She has been principal harpist at the Michigan Opera Theatre for 40 years as of 2017, and has also played with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She began studying the harp with Velma Froude at Cass Technical High School in Detroit; attended the University of Michigan where she received both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees, studying harp with Ruth Dean Clark and voice with Rosemary Russell. Terry-Ross did additional graduate work with harpist Lucile Lawrence at Tanglewood Institute in Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leyna Bloom</span> American actress, model, dancer, and activist

Leyna Bloom is an American actress, model, dancer, and activist. She has attracted press as a trailblazer for transgender performers in the entertainment and fashion industries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jari Jones</span> Model and LGBTQ rights activist

Jari Jones is an American trans Femme activist, performance artist and creative. Jones was a cast member, script consultant, acting coach, and producer of Port Authority.

Fatima Jamal is an American filmmaker, model, writer, and interdisciplinary artist. A Black transgender woman who goes by the moniker "Fat Femme," Jamal is also an activist who speaks and makes art about social issues including racism, body positivity, and LGBTQ rights.

Shirley Woodson is an American visual artist, educator, mentor, and art collector who is most known for her spectacular figurative paintings depicting African American history. Her work that spans a career of 60 years and counting can be found in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, among other institutions. Woodson was named the 2021 Kresge Eminent Artist. The Detroit Institute of Arts exhibited 11 of her pieces in "Shirley Woodson: Shield of the Nile" Dec. 18, 2021 through June 12, 2022, the museum's first solo exhibition of Woodson's work. A painting by Woodson is featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit exhibition "Ground Up: Reflections on Black Abstraction" April 8-August 16, 2022.

Darryl DeAngelo Terrell is an African-American artist based in Brooklyn, who is a lens-based media artist, activist, curator, DJ, educator, performer and writer, known for their photography and videography. They identify as queer, femme, and non-binary, which has informed their art work. Terrell's work explores issues of history, displacement, femme identity, sexuality, and gender, amongst other issues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willow Pill</span> American drag performer (born 1995)

Willow Patterson, known by the stage name Willow Pill, is an American drag performer. She is best known as the winner of season 14 of RuPaul's Drag Race in 2022.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Jossell, Shar (2021-04-22). "Ahya Simone Is the Harpist and Filmmaker Telling Stories of Black Trans Womanhood". them. Retrieved 2021-06-16.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Detroit's black trans women are launching a new comedic webseries". www.theneighborhoods.org. Archived from the original on 2021-05-08. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  3. 1 2 3 Mejia, Mercedes (2015-06-18). "Message of hope and healing for young transgender woman". Michigan Radio. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  4. 1 2 "Harpist Ahya Simone Highlights Humor and Joy in Her Black Trans-Centered Webseries Femme Queen Chronicles". Audiofemme. 2021-04-07. Retrieved 2021-06-16.
  5. ↑ Michael, Jason A. (2018-09-05). "Ahya Simone wins Kresge Artist Fellowship". Pride Source. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  6. ↑ Drew, Kimberly (2020). Black Futures (1 ed.). New York: Random House. ISBN   978-0-399-18113-9. OCLC   1090279852.
  7. ↑ Bruce-Jones, Henry (2020-10-12). "Ahya Simone reminds us that we need each other with 'Frostbite'". Fact Magazine. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  8. ↑ Kim, Michelle (12 October 2020). "This Stunning Video from Harpist Ahya Simone Is an Ode to Community". them. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  9. ↑ "cktrl joins forces with harpist Ahya Simone for new track 'Mazes'". Crack Magazine. 2021-04-22. Retrieved 2022-04-03.
  10. 1 2 3 Winn, Ashley (2020-02-20). "Trans Sistas of Color Project Detroit's Co-founder on Art and Identity". Hour Detroit Magazine. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.