Namory Keita
http://(https://www.namorydrum.com/about/bio.html
Namory Keita was born in 1982 in the village of Sangbarala, Guinea. At age 7 he began drumming, becoming the lead drummer for his village in 2006.
Members of his family are well-known drummers. His brothers, Solo Keita, living in Japan, and Nansady Keita, in England, grew up drumming with Namory under the tutelage of his uncle, Famoudou Konate, one of the most famous West African drummers in the world.
Namory recorded his first CD in 2010 named Kolafolo meaning the ‘Beginning of Everything’. He is a featured artist on recordings by Solo Keita, Billy Konate and Diarra Konate to name a few.
As an international teacher and performing artist, Namory has been invited to many places to share his culture including Germany, Poland, France, Canada, and Portugal. Since coming to America in 2010, he has played with Famoudou Konate, Mamady Keita, Bolokada Conde, Moussa Traore, Mamady Kourouma and the list goes on.
Namory plays for the world renowned West African dance teacher Youssouf Koumbassa, the Kouraba Festival in Canada, Cirque Zuma Zuma, ILAP, and many other noted musicians and venues throughout New England and the US and abroad.
Namory Keita, Master Drummer, is a sought after teacher and performer with a unique style and a wealth of traditional knowledge very rare to find outside the villages of Guinea. His resources include not only his wonderful ability to engage any audience but also his relationships with dancers and drummers locally and around the world.
Professor Ervin aka DJ Prof.E
Keona K. Ervin brings expertise in Black Women’s History in the U.S., Gender and Sexuality Studies, Black Feminist Studies, US Labor and Working-Class History, Black Social Movements in the US, and US Urban History. Ervin is the author of the award-winning book, Gateway to Equality: Black Women and the Struggle for Economic Justice in St. Louis (University Press of Kentucky Press, 2017). She has published articles and reviews in International Labor and Working-Class History, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, New Labor Forum, and Los Angeles Review of Books. Ervin is currently writing a history of Black women’s labor struggles that will be published by Verso Books and a history of the intersections of Black radical feminist politics and labor-leftist coalitions and solidarity movements in the US since the 1970s. Ervin is the Senior Editor of the Labor History section of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History.
Dr. J (Adanna Kai Jones)
Dr. J (Adanna Kai Jones) received her Ph.D. in Critical Dance Studies at the University of California, Riverside, and her BFA in Dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts—Rutgers University. She has performed in professional dance companies based in NYC, including the Julia Ritter Performance Group and Souloworks with Andrea E. Woods. And in general, her research remains focused on Caribbean dance and identity politics within the Diaspora, paying particular focus to the rolling hip dance known as winin’. Her latest research project uses multi-sited, transnational ethnography to track the ways in which Caribbean choreographers play an integral role in the support and preservation of contemporary Caribbean identity politics within the US.
