Join Next Level Director Junious Brickhouse and Mark Katz, Next Level Founding Director and Ruel W. Tyson, Jr. and Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for a discussion with and performance by Next Level alumni MC Toni Blackman and beatmaker Glen “DiViNCi” Valencia, who together will illuminate hip hop’s ability to grow a global community.

Toni Blackman was the first hip hop artist selected to serve as a Cultural Ambassador with the U.S. Department of State and was a member of Next Level Team Senegal in 2015. As an artist, educator and cultural ambassador, Blackman is the founder of the Freestyle Union and Rhyme Like a Girl. She is currently an artist with the Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute and a fellow in the Echoing Green Foundation’s Thought Leadership Cohort.

Glen “DiViNCi” Valencia is a founding member and producer of the Orlando-based hip hop group, Solillaquists of Sound, and he first gained notoriety by performing live music on multiple Akai MPC samplers, blending the concepts of improvisation and production in ways the world had never before seen. A pioneer of the “Controllerism” scene, DiViNCi has worked with Grammy Award-winning icon Ms. Lauryn Hill and joined Next Level Team Honduras in 2016.

Register here to participate in the virtual program. We encourage you to ask questions during the program for the panelists to address throughout the conversation. We hope you will join us!

‍