Urbanized Music Online

AMINA

---

A creative child and talkative child, Amina grew up in her father’s homeland of Nigeria where she and her family moved shortly after her 7th birthday. She wouldn’t return to the U.S. for good until after high school. "We didn’t have that much over there at that time so I missed a whole lot of early hip-hop,” she explains, “…but in retrospect, I consider myself lucky to have had influences of not just Nigerian musicians like Fela and Sunny Ade but also American artists like The Spinners, Roberta Flack, Miles Davis, and so many others were influences for me, because my mom played it all!” She admits, “So, with roots like that, it’s no wonder I became hip-hop!”

Amina is now an internationally recognized voice of grassroots hip-hop activism. She is a writer, performing artist, filmmaker, and hip-hop practitioner who has spent the past 15 years involved in the preservation of Chicago’s hip-hop culture and community. Amina is Executive Director of Chicago Hip-Hop Initiative, a hip-hop community empowerment collaborative; and Co-Founder of Chicago Hip-Hop Heritage Month, an officially recognized annual observance since 2003 that celebrates Chicago’s local hip-hop arts and community throughout the entire month of July. She’s also a respected emcee, poet, and founding member of Urbanized Music, a production duo of Amina & Coolout Chris, and collective of Chicago-based true school artists who’ve performed internationally promoting the aesthetics of hip-hop culture over media hype. In 2006, she co-created ‘B-Girl Power’, an all-inclusive movement to celebrate, empower, and promote true representations of women in hip-hop, and push to control the exploitation of female images in the media.

Recently selected to serve as a United States Cultural Envoy, Amina spent 2 weeks in 2010 leading a team of 3 hip-hop artists from Chicago as they toured 7 regions in the West African nation of Cote d’Ivoire. They performed, conducted workshops, met local artists and helped foster an understanding of American culture while encouraging young people to use hip-hop progressively. This assignment was chronicled in the independently produced documentary Keep It Moving-Chicago to Cote d’Ivoire (April ‘11), which premiered to much acclaim in the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival. The exchange gave birth to the creation of the Cote d’Ivoire Hip-Hop Initiative, a registered NGO, committed to the same as their sister group in Chicago.

She is currently touring the U.S., promoting both her directorial debut Keep It Moving-The Movie, Chicago Hip-Hop to Cote d’Ivoire, which chronicles 2-week exchange as a US Envoy, and, the new release by Urbanized Music, entitled ‘UMAC: Urbanized Music: Amina & Chris’. She also gives lectures, conducts workshops, moderates and sits on panels covering a wide range of hip-hop related topics and themes.

For more info visit www.chihiphop.org or www.urbanizedmusic.com