Akua Naru is a US-American Hip Hop artist, organizer, producer, activist, and scholar, whose work centers social justice advocacy and community building. Her music describes the myriad experiences of Black women along a sonic spectrum from Jazz to Soul. She has released to date four studio albums and performed hundreds of shows in more than fifty countries with her 6-piece band. She is also the current Race & Media Fellow at the Center for the Study of Race & Ethnicity in America at Brown University.

In 2020, Akua Naru initiated ›theKEEPERS‹, a global Black womxn-led collective of artists, activists, and scholars collaborating to build the first comprehensive digital archive to focus on the role of Black women, trans* and non-binary people in the creation and evolution of hip-hop music and culture. By amplifying their voices and reclaiming their stories, ›theKEEPERS‹ seeks to finally undo systematic erasure and create empowering resources for a new generation of Black girls and womxn on stage and beyond. In this online lecture and listening session, Akua Naru will share insights to the work of ›theKEEPERS‹ and introduce us to her compelling field of study: the true history of Hip Hop.