Nona Hendryx

Nona Hendryx is a revolutionary goddess of art-rock and new wave. The singer, songwriter, musician and multimedia artist addresses social issues, love and politics in her work. Hendryx’s career spans decades of evolving sound and style. Longtime Hendryx fans know her as a member of the groundbreaking band Labelle and the author of their worldwide hit “Lady Marmalade.” Hendryx established herself as a solo, post-Labelle artist on rock-infused albums. his album Mutatis Mutandis (change the things that need to be changed) lends the gravity needed for a gripping rendition of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” with a smoky vocal range somewhere between funk and the end of the stratosphere. Hendryx is an Art in Music Ambassador for Berklee College at the Boston Conservatory and BerkleeNYC. She curated and acted in a production created for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nona Hendryx and the Disciples of Sun Ra in the Temple of Dendur. Currently, she is composing music for the revival of Bluea play with music, and wrote two compositions for the Roundabout Theater’s first Broadway production of mind problem, written by Alice Childress and directed by Charles R. Wright. She also received a grant from Jazz South Arts to compose the music for a new piece, Young nerds of color, written by Melinda Lopez and directed by Dawn Meredith Simmons at the Central Square Theater in Boston. Hendryx is passionate about music, visual arts and technology, and continues to be a prolific artist.

Jamila Woods

Jamila Woods is a Chicago-born singer-songwriter and award-winning poet whose inspirations include Gwendolyn Brooks and Toni Morrison. After the release in 2016 of his first album SKY, Woods has received critical acclaim for her singular sound that is both grounded in soul and resolutely modern. His second release in 2019 LEGACY! LEGACY! featured 12 tracks named after writers, thinkers and visual artists who influenced his life and work. She is a Pushcart Prize-winning poet and co-editor of BreakBeat Poets: Black Girl Magic (2018). His poetry was recently published in the anthology Library of America Afro-American poetry: 250 years of struggle and song (2020). Woods recently made her television debut, playing SULA (Paperback) on “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert on January 6, 2021.

Ayana Contreras

Ayana Contreras is a cultural historian, memory worker, radio DJ and archivist. Passionate collector with more than 8,000 vintage vinyl records, she animates the soul recovered program on WBEZ and Vocalo Radio in Chicago. She is also a columnist for low beat magazine, and his writings have been published in Chicago Review, American Oxford and Daily Bandcamp among others. His book on post-Civil Rights Era cultural history, titled The Energy Never Dies: Afro-Optimism and Creativity in Chicagowas published in December 2021 by University of Illinois Press.