Words, Beats & Life
For over a decade, I have worked with Words, Beats & Life (WBL) as an artist, consultant, director, speaker and trainer. I have traveled with collectives of artists to South Africa, Lebanon, Pakistan, Belgium and China. I also conceived and produced a series of performances, exhibitions and original productions called “From Sifrs to Ciphers: Hip Hop is Muslim” and helped launch and produce the annual WBL Festival. I am currently the Strategy and Innovation Specialist at WBL.
Towards 2040: Creative Leaders Fellowship
As Strategy and Innovation Specialist, I worked with WBL and their global hip hop community to develop a vision for what our world could look like in 2040. A part of that vision was to make sure creative leaders from our communities were able to make the change they envisioned. With that in mind, we developed Towards 2040: Creative Leaders Fellowship.
From Sifrs to Ciphers: Hip Hop is Muslim
In addition to curating and producing From Sifrs to Ciphers, I was also the Creative Director for Footsteps in the Dark and Knights of the Raj New York.
Footsteps in the Dark is an original theatrical production that was performed at venues around Washington DC including the Kennedy Center. It features dancers Amirah Sackett, Popmaster Fabel, Al Taw’am, Mary Mar, Haleem ‘Stringz’ Rasul, Sarah Bee and music by Mr Mic and myself under the moniker DJ Man-O-Wax.
For Knights of the Raj New York UK-based artist Mohammed Ali explored the stories of Bangladeshi community through food. After a fair amount of research and community engagement, the project debuted as an exhibition, performance and a cooking demonstration at the Museum of Food and Drink.
International Projects
The Reminders Tour in China
In December 2019, I toured six cities in China as a DJ and Tour Director for The Reminders. Our troupe consisted of two vocalists, two dancers and a DJ. Each city included performances and a number of workshops.
Magnets of Creativity, Pakistan
From 2015 - 2016, I led the Magnets of Creativity project in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi, exploring street art and mural making as an exchange between US and Pakistani artists and communities. We also had the opportunity to engage with musicians in each city.
WBL Festival
I helped expand WBL’s annual Remixing the Art of Social Change Teach-In into a full-fledged festival that included paint jams, dance battles, performances, workshops, poetry slams, chess tournaments and lots of conversations, teaching and learning. In 2017, we completely overwhelmed the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage with the largest audience they had ever seen!
