A Conversation with Aisha Fukushima and Anthony Brown

Join justice strategist and vocalist Aisha Fukushima and composer and activist Anthony Brown for a conversation about shared identity, mixed heritage, solidarity, and the power of creating visions of justice and liberation through music.

Aisha Fukushima is a justice strategist, performance lecturer, singer/songwriter, facilitator, and “RAPtivist” (rap activist). Fukushima is the founder RAPtivism (Rap Activism), a hip hop project spanning 20 countries and four continents, amplifying universal efforts for freedom and justice. She is a multilingual, multiracial African American Japanese woman who has given lectures and performances around the world. As a public speaker, Fukushima combines the art of performance and lecture and links themes such as hip hop, global citizenship, empowerment, feminism, and cultural activism with live musical performance. She was the first non-Native person to deliver a keynote address at Montana’s 2012 Schools of Promise Conference for Indigenous youth and has presented at universities, conferences, and public events such as TEDx.

Anthony Brown is a composer, percussionist, ethnomusicologist, Guggenheim, MacDowell and Ford Fellow, and a Smithsonian Associate Scholar. He has performed on over 30 recordings and has collaborated with Max Roach, Cecil Taylor, Zakir Hussain, Pharoah Sanders, Angela Davis, Anthony Davis and the San Francisco Symphony. Dr. Brown is currently Artistic Director of Fifth Stream Music and the GRAMMY-nominated Asian American Orchestra, and is a professor of music at the California Jazz Conservatory. He has contributed chapters to books about Duke Ellington and John Coltrane published by Cambridge and Oxford University Press, respectively. Anthony Brown received the Distinguished Alumnus Award in Music from the University of Oregon in 2017.