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Toni Blackman
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Toni Blackman received an Echoing Green fellowship in 1999. She is America's Hip Hop Ambassador – the first hip-hop artist chosen to represent the United States around the world.
CLICK on the player to listen to this five-minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
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Toni Blackman is America's Hip Hop Ambassador – the first hip-hop artist chosen to represent the United States around the world.She works for the US Department of State as a cultural ambassador to change the mainstream media's negative picture of the hip-hop culture and to emphasize how it can be used for social change. She also serves as an American cultural specialist and a musical ambassador in several US State Department programs, taking her music and poetry around the world to show the diversity of American culture.
Her most recent assignment was to go the Democratic Republic of the Congo to work with other musicians to celebrate International Stop Violence Against Women Day. While there, she organized local artists to develop musical Public Service Announcements to promote respect for women.
Another of Toni's projects is the Lyrical Embassy, an umbrella organization that includes her ambassadorship, her music, her poetry and her book. Her most recent book, Inner Course: A Plea for Real Love, is a collection of poetry currently available on her website and on Amazon. She is working on two new books and three albums.
Toni's advice to social entrepreneurs: “Stay true to your original idea and don’t be deflected - sometimes it is important to sit still and just listen to your own heart.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to her interview.
