Panelists

Dr. Meta Jones is an associate professor of African American literature at Howard University and the author of The Muse is Music: Jazz Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to the Spoken Word. Dr. Jones completed her doctorate in English and American Literature at Stanford University.

Dr. Keith Leonard is an associate professor at American University, where he has taught literature courses centered on a variety of Afrofuturistic themes. Dr. Leonard is the author of Fettered Genius: the African American Bardic Poet from Slavery to Civil Rights, and his research focuses on political consciousness in African American poetry, poetics, and hip-hop culture. He completed his doctorate at Stanford University.

Dr. Kevin Strait is a museum specialist at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, where he is responsible for bringing the Mothership and Chuck Berry's 1973 Eldorado Cadillac to the public. He received his doctorate in American Studies from George Washington University.

Dr. Kendra Salois is an assistant professor of music at American University. Her work lies at the intersection of religious and national belonging, popular “musicking,” and transnational markets. Her current book project explores the relationship between Moroccan hip-hop aesthetics, hip-hop practitioners' ethics, and changing conceptions of citizenship in the context of thirty years of increasing economic neoliberalism in Morocco.