The Seraphine Collective is a Detroit-based feminist DJ network for women, femme, and non-binary DJs, musicians, and artists. [1] The group provides workshops, organizes events, and provides space and resources for under-resourced and under-represented artists through its collectively run record label and venue. [2] [3] [4]
The Seraphine Collective was founded in 2013 by Lauren Rossi, who was discouraged by the lack of representation of female artists in music. [1] Rossi started a blog documenting the work of female musicians, which led to the formation of the Seraphine Collective. [1] The group organizes training workshops, the Best Fest Forever music festival, shows, and they have released several mixtapes. [3] [1]
Notable members of the collective include Dina Bankole, Rachel Thompson, Miz Korona. Other noteworthy affiliates include Mother Cyborg, Girls Rock Detroit and the Foundation for Women in Hip Hop. The Seraphine Collective is a sponsored project of the Allied Media Projects. [5]
In 2016, the collective was a recipient of the Knight Arts Challenge Grant. They have also received funding from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the Awesome Foundation. [5] [6]
Rashia Tashan Fisher is an American rapper, writer, activist and actress better known by her stage name Rah Digga. She is best known as a longtime member of the Flipmode Squad, a hip hop group led by Busta Rhymes. She has been called "one of rap's most prominent women MCs by AllMusic" and "one of hip hop's most skilled female MCs" in the book How to Rap.
Caledonia Curry, whose work appears under the name Swoon, is a contemporary artist who works with printmaking, sculpture, and stop-motion animation to create immersive installations, community-based projects and public artworks. She is best known as one of the first women Street Artists to gain international recognition. Her work centers the transformative capacity of art as a catalyst for healing within communities experiencing crisis.
Minneapolis hip hop is hip hop or rap music that originates from the Minneapolis metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Minnesota.
Rebel Diaz is a political hip hop duo out of the Bronx, New York and Chicago, IL consisting of the Chilean brothers Rodrigo Venegas and Gonzalo Venegas. Rebel Diaz uses their music as an organizing tool and to spread knowledge about injustice. Hip hop website AllHipHop.com named Rebel Diaz one of the top fifty emerging/underground hip hop artists of 2013.
Salome MC, is an Iranian rapper, producer, antimilitarist activist and multimedia artist. Known as Iran's first female rapper, she has been recognized as one of the best non-English-speaking hip-hop artists by MTV and Time magazine listed her as one of the world's best rappers who are revolutionizing the world of rap. She is also a multimedia/video artist and her work has been featured in festivals, galleries and universities around the world, such as Venice Biennale and Yale University. In 2020, Salome founded "Seven Climes", a grassroots art and heritage project that presents the cultural and lingual diversity of the Iranian Hiphop scene.
Street Soul Productions (S.S.P) Is a record label established in 2005. Originally based in Birmingham, London, Ipswich and California the label became a community organization in 2008, and since then has concentrated on music workshops and events alongside online broadcasting. The label is called Street Soul to pay tribute to the hip hop genre, in particular the Jazzmatazz movement from the mid-1990s.
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, which she co-executive produced. She co-wrote Jay-Z's 2010 memoir, Decoded.
James Dewitt Yancey, better known by the stage names J Dilla and Jay Dee, was an American record producer and rapper who emerged in the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michigan, as one third of the music group Slum Village. He was also a member of the Soulquarians, a musical collective active during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
New York State is a major center for all types of music. New York has been a famous melting pot of cultures from around the world. Its diverse community has contributed to both introducing and spreading multiple genres of music, including Salsa, Jazz, Folk, Rock and Roll, and Classical. New York's plethora of music venues and event halls serve as popular markers which have housed many noteworthy artists.
Eekwol is a Canadian rapper from the Muskoday First Nation in Saskatchewan.
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 in 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.
Ayanah Moor is a conceptual artist working in print, video, mixed media, and performance. Her work addresses contemporary popular culture by interrogating identity and vernacular aesthetics. Much of her works center on hip-hop culture, American politics, black vernacular and gender performance.
Women Who Rock was created in 2011 to establish an open dialogue about the portrayal of women and popular music by looking at the effects of society, culture and social justice. This community is brought together in the local Seattle area by University of Washington and Seattle University faculty members, students, community members, activists and academics in music history, gender, race and cultural/ social justice movements. The wide variety of individuals from this community are able to introduce and collaborate with artists, musicians, media channels, activists, scholars and students in order to research, discuss and understand the role of women and popular music throughout social scenes and movements.
Jamila Woods is a Chicago-based American singer, songwriter and poet. Woods is a graduate of St. Ignatius College Prep and Brown University, where she received a BA in Africana Studies and Theater & Performance Studies. Her work focuses on themes of Black ancestry, Black feminism, and Black identity, with recurring emphases on self-love and the City of Chicago.
Nomadic Massive is an independent hip-hop supergroup based in Montreal, Quebec, active in the scene since 2004. They have achieved notoriety in Canada, United States, Brazil and France among many international venues. The membership of the band varies depending on song, but their ensemble includes rappers, singers, keyboardists, saxophone, trumpets, trombone, guitarists, bass, and drums. Many of the members are multi-instrumentalists and trade spots on stage. The official members are vocalists Waahli, Taliwah, Meryem Saci, Lou Piensa, as well as musicians Butta Beats and Ali Sepu. With lyrics in diverse languages including English, French, Creole, Spanish and Arabic, Nomadic Massive celebrates global music interpreted through an Afro-Latin twist with hip-hop as the main medium of expression. They have been a staple of the Montreal International Jazz Festival for several years.
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