Aaliyah Taylor

Aaliyah Taylor, born and raised in Chicago, is a Psychology concentrator and pre-medical student. Her love for music started early, with her dancing since she was 3 and playing the flute since she was 10. This class has been the most perfect opportunity to rediscover her love for making music, also embarking on the journey of learning to sing for this course!

Jada

Jada René Lee (Born May 19th, 2007), is a Black British dual heritage (Caribbean and European) citizen, specifically from Jamaica and England. She shares a great passion for Music of most Genres, this derives from her upbringing in a Musical household, enabling her to develop a great ear for Music from a young age.

Jada is a multi-instrumentalist, playing the guitar, bass, and drums alongside her primary instrument, her voice. Her talents know no bounds as she effortlessly weaves melodies and harmonies, each note resonating with emotion and depth. Through her music, Jada expresses the essence of her identity, blending her Caribbean and European roots into a symphony of cultural fusion.

Despite her initial inclination towards athletics in her youth, Jada's journey led her down the path of music, where she discovered her true calling. Embracing her newfound passion, she now embarks on a journey of musical exploration and artistic expression, driven by the desire to share her gift with the world.

As Jada continues to evolve as a musician and performer, she remains committed to developing her craft and pushing the boundaries of her creativity. With each chord struck and every lyric sung, she leaves an indelible mark on the world, a testament to the power of music to transcend boundaries.

CAZIR

CAZIR is a poet, rapper, and producer from Brooklyn, New York, and Saint Lucia. Their first project, Planet Cazir, chronicled their self-discovery journey through outer space. Now, their new album, Cazir University, describes an underwater meditation session where Cazir reflects on their adolescent and college experiences. Stream their music on all platforms now!

Nadine Lee
Host | Visiting Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Arts at Brown

Nadine Lee is an artist with more to her than meets the eye and has a deepness to her music which triggers emotional connectivity and honesty.

In a word Nadine Lee is ‘REAL’. Nadine is a drummer, bass player and singer/songwriter in that order and gives 100% to every performance no matter where it is. The range of artists & composers Nadine has worked alongside is a reflection of her professionalism within the music industry.

Theatre includes: The Lightning Child – Bass Guitar (Shakespeare’s Globe); Junkyard – Drummer (Bristol Old Vic/UK tour); This House – Drummer (Leeds Playhouse/UK tour); Peter Pan – Drummer (White City Theatre); Josephine – Composer/Musical Director (The Egg Theatre) Bagdad Cafe – Musical Director (The Old Vic Theatre), Wuthering Heights – Musical Director (National Theatre/UK TOUR), Othello – Musical Director/Arranger (The Watermill Theatre).

Film includes: The Man in The Hat (appeared as Nadine Lee, leader of the Nadine Lee Band)

Artists include: Lizzo, Stormzy, The London Philharmonic Orchestra, Annie Lennox, Stephen Warbeck, Wise Children, Headlong, Cece Winans, Ekklesia UK, London Community Gospel Choir, Lamar, Jamilia, Bryan McFaden, Katie Mueller and P Diddy. 

For Nadine music is not just a beat, rhythm or melody it’s the window to her soul, so you could say, the truth always comes out.

SAMMUS (Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo)
David S. Josephson Assistant Professor of Music at Brown

SAMMUS aka Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo—pronouns she/her—is a first-gen black feminist rapper, producer, and scholar with family roots in Côte D'Ivoire and the Congo. She was raised in Ithaca, NY, which is located on the traditional lands of the Cayuga Nation. Since 2010 Sammus has written, produced, and recorded three full-length albums, three EPs, a beat tape, and several one-off collaborations with notable artists including Moor Mother, Open Mike Eagle, Noga Erez,  Xenia Rubinos, Mega Ran, and Sadie Dupuis in addition to her collaborations with video game developers, podcasters, and filmmakers. In 2019 she received her PhD in science and technology studies from Cornell University and in 2022 she became the David S. Josephson Assistant Professor of Music at Brown University, located within the ancestral homelands of the Narragansett Indian Tribe.

Creatively, Sammus is interested in the aesthetics of anxiety, specifically what it means to be an anxious black girl. Whether her lyrics take the form of stream-of-consciousness style confessions, Afrofuturist fabulations, pro-weirdo anthems, or reflexive meditations on screen-mediated life, she remains poetically committed to granular introspection as a form of personal and cultural shadow work. Her live shows, characterized by her high energy and the inclusion of elements of cosplay, bring together a vibrant array of hip hop heads, punks, activists, and self-identified nerds and geeks, among others. As noted by the Los Angeles Times, Sammus “has a gift for getting a message across.”

Beyond her creative work, Enongo’s research interests include black feminist sound studies, ludomusicology, and hip hop praxis. Her doctoral research, which she completed in 2019, focuses on the sociotechnical dynamics that shape the development and use of “community-studios”—recording studios that provide high-quality recording tools, professional sound engineering services, and audio training to communities that often lack financial or social access to these resources.

Since Fall 2021 she has been a member of the steering committee for Brown’s science, technology, and society program. She is also serving as the Director of Audio at Glow Up Games, the first women-of-color led game studio, and she is a member of the KEEPERS, a Hip Hop collective that is currently developing the most comprehensive digital archive to map the international contributions of womxn and girls across Hip Hop’s 50-year history. In Fall 2022 she partnered with Dr. Charrise Barron to launch the Black Music Lab, a hub at Brown that centers the intellectual and creative exploration of musical forms such as hip-hop, black sacred musics, R&B, and house among other black musico-cultural traditions that remain underrepresented within academia despite their overwhelming sonic influence and popularity across the broader global soundscape.

Dr. Charrise Barron

Dr. Charrise Barron is Assistant Professor of Music at Harvard University. Dr. Barron has taught and guest lectured at Harvard, Yale, Colorado College, and Brown University. She has even lectured at the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. Dr. Barron earned her PhD in African and African American Studies, with a secondary field of study in ethnomusicology, from Harvard University. She holds a Master of Divinity summa cum laude from Yale Divinity School.