2020-09-24

Akua Naru

Akua Naru (Boston, Massachusetts) 

Akua Naru is a Hip Hop artist, organizer, producer, activist, and scholar whose work centers social justice advocacy and community building. Her music theorizes the myriad experiences of Black women through rhyme along a sonic spectrum from Jazz to Soul. She is co-founder of the production/management company The Urban Era and has released multiple albums alongside a wide range of additional artistic content. She has recorded with artists including Tony Allen, Angelique Kidjo, Questlove, and Georgia Anne Muldrow. Akua has performed internationally in more than fifty countries across five continents with her six-piece band. In her social justice work, she has collaborated with numerous individuals and organizations globally in order to instigate change. Akua Naru was a Nasir Jones Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University (2018-19) and a Race & Media Fellow at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University (2019-2020). 

Interviewed by Tamar Sella, 09/24/2020.

Tamar Sella

Music; United States; Covid-19 Pandemic

Boston, Massachusetts

Musicians in America during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Society for Ethnomusicology