Toni Blackman is an American rapper and writer who was the first hip-hop ambassador to the US State Department.
11 Facts About Toni Blackman
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The first Hip Hop Cultural Envoy to travel with the State Department, Blackman served in Senegal, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Botswana and Swaziland where she delivered lectures on hip hop music and culture.
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Toni Blackman has travelled throughout Europe, Angola, Brazil, Canada and toured Southeast Asia as a part of Jazz at Lincoln Center Rhythm Road Abroad program, working in the world's most war-torn countries to promote reconciliation and rehabilitation to those regions.
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Toni Blackman was founding director of Freestyle Union, a cypher workshop which uses freestyle rap as a tool to promote social responsibility, was awarded, two prestigious fellowships.
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Toni Blackman served as a fellow with the Echoing Green Foundation and as a fellow with the Open Society Institute through which she launched Rhyme Like A Girl formerly known as ADI.
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Toni Blackman is a member of the Spoken Word Committee of the New York Chapter of the Recording Academy.
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Toni Blackman has performed alongside Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Guru, The Roots, Wu Tang, the Lilith Fair, Def Poetry.
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Erykah Badu 8.
Toni Blackman performed in a host of venues including the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and at Lincoln Center in New York.
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In 2009, Toni Blackman spoke at the Pio Manzu International Conference in Rimini, Italy, and in 2010 facilitated a groundbreaking artist residency at Jefferson Arts Center with girls from Liberia, Sudan, Somalia, and the United States.
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Toni Blackman spoke at Harvard University as a part of Bakari Kitwana's Rap Sessions Series collaborated on and performed a song along with Azerbaijani rap group Dayirman, dedicated to victims of Khojaly massacre.
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An interview with Toni Blackman is featured in a scholarly article about girls and "bad bitches" in hip-hop online video culture written by ethnomusicologist and social media scholar Kyra Gaunt in the Journal of Popular Music Studies.