Amina

Amina is an internationally recognized voice of grassroots Hip-Hop activism and education. She is a writer, performing artist, filmmaker, and Hip-Hop practitioner who has spent 30+ years actively involved in Chicago’s Hip-Hop culture and community.
Amina is a co-founder of the Chicago Hip-Hop Initiative, a Hip-Hop community empowerment collaborative; and 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 a collective of Chicago-based true school artists who’ve performed internationally promoting the aesthetics of Hip-Hop culture over media hype.
Amina has sat on panels alongside notables like Gloria Steinem, Fat Joe, Dr. Carol Adams, Billy Wimsatt, DMC, Bakari Kitwana, WaterFlow (Senegal), Joan Morgan, and Mc Lyte, among many other activists, entertainers, and academics. She has taken part in conferences and festivals like Hip-Hop Theater Festival (MCA, Chicago), Taking It To The Streets (Chicago), Campus Progress National Student Conference (Washington, DC), Antioch College Hip-Hop Convergence (Yellow Springs, OH), Slum Fest & Paint Louis (Saint Louis, MO), Remixing The Art Of Social Change (Chicago), and recent virtual events like Unchained Vibes Africa’s Democracy Vibes (Lagos/Virtual), and “My” Philosophy: The Rise of Hip Hop Studies in the Academy Symposium co-presented between Virginia Union University (VUU) and Virginia State University (VSU).
Selected in 2010 to serve as a United States Cultural Envoy, Amina spent 2 weeks leading a team of 3 hip-hop artists from Chicago as they toured 7 regions of 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 2011), which premiered to high acclaim at 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 goals as its sister group in Chicago.
As a hip-hop artist, Amina has performed on stages ranging from small local nightclubs to prominent venues like Chicago's Jay Pritzker Pavillion in Millennium Park, Steppenwolf Theater, Navy Pier Skyline Stage, Chicago Cultural Center, The Vic Theater, and Le Palais de la Culture in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. She has presented at Northwestern, DePaul, UIC, University of Chicago Lab School, Governors State, and Northern Illinois University. Currently, she lectures, conducts workshops, and performs around the country with her group Urbanized Music. She is a part-time lecturer of Hip-Hop Music and Culture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College Chicago where she teaches courses on the history of Hip-Hop and a survey of African American Music. Amina also played an integral role in creating the Hip-Hop Studies Minor program at Columbia College Chicago, which is now in its 5th year.