Toni Blackman

Toni Blackman is an award-winning artist whose steadfast work and commitment to hip hop led the U.S. State Department to select her as an American Cultural Specialist and one of the first Hip Hop Envoys. She recently served in Benin this past June. Her past tours have included Senegal, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, southern Africa, southeast Asia and Brazil. She has traveled to 47 countries performing, speaking and teaching. Toni works with her band in New York and records with a small team of hip-hop music producers. Heavily influenced by the spiritual jazz movement of the 1970s, she has an extensive catalogue of inspirational hip-hop and a series of Meditation Mixtapes. As a music educator, Toni spent two years as a teaching artist and hip-hop specialist at Carnegie Hall, worked extensively with the Apollo Theater education department and has served as a poet-in residence at Studio Museum of Harlem. Toni is currently a Visiting Scholar at NYU’s School of Music and Performing Arts in the Music Experience Design Lab and the first hip-hop music education scholar to hold the position in Music Education.

Blackman has opened for and/or shared the stage with Erykah Badu, Wyclef, trombonist Craig Harris, Yasiin Bey (Mos Def), The Roots, Wu Tang Clan, Pharoahe Monch, Medeski Martin & Wood, Bahamadia, Boot Camp Clic, Me’Shell NdegeoCello, Dead Prez, Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, Charlie Hunter Quartet, Jill Sobule, guitarist Vernon Reid, Youssou Ndour, Burnt Sugar, Onaje Allan Gumbs, and Rickie Lee Jones. Her project, Rhyme like a Girl, featured at Lincoln Center this past summer. Toni has shared the bill with several poetry legends including Nikki Giovanni, Billy Collins, Sonia Sanchez, Miguel Algarin, Don Matera, Philip Levine, Sekou Sundiata, Bob Holman, the Last Poets, Lucille Clifton, Haki Madhubuti, and Ethelbert Miller.