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Black Art Matters Panelists

Kamau Daaood is a poet, performer and community arts activist. He has made a respected name for himself from his cultural work in the Los Angeles area and beyond. In the year 2018 he celebrated fifty years in arts and culture. He began his artistic career as young poet in the Watts Writers Workshop and as the “Word Musician” in the Underground Musicians and Artists Association (later changed to the Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension) under the direction of composer, pianist, mentor, Horace Tapscott. His poetry has the ability to touch one very deeply. The work is forceful and thought provoking and extremely musical. He weaves powerful imagery and soul-searching visions to promote the ideas of healing, mindfulness, social and personal transformation. He has mastered the relationship of poetry and music. He is truly an urban griot.

Kamau Daaood is the author of The Language of Saxophones: Selected Poems of Kamau Daaood, City Lights Publishers, 2005. In 2012, he was Artist-in-Residence at the Universite Michel de Montaigne in Bordeaux, France. There, Le Castor Astral published a bi-lingual translation of Kamau’s work, Notes D’un Griot De Los Angeles, 2012. He published two earlier chapbooks, Ascension, 1976 and Liberator of The Spirit, 1984, both on Ascension Press. His work can be found in various journals and anthologies. He has been the subject and featured poet in several award-winning documentaries, including Life is a Saxophone, produced by S. Pearl Sharp, 1984; Leimert Park: The Story of a Village in South Central L.A., by Jeannette Lindsay, 2008; the PBS documentary Race is the Place, Paradigm Productions, 2005; and The Odyssey: Poets Passion and Poetry, A Bob Bryan Film 2006. More recently, he appeared in And When I Die I Won’t be Dead, a film about beat poet Bob Kaufman by filmmaker Billy Woodbury. In 1997 Kamau recorded the critically acclaimed CD Leimert Park, M.A.M.A. Records and has a appeared on over a dozen other recording as guest artist, and on various compilations.

As an educator Kamau has taught in the California Poets in the Schools Program, California State University Northridge, and Otis Art Institute of Parson School of Design. He is one of three co-founders to the Anansi Writer’s Workshop in 1990 that still serves the community today. For well over ten years he was a member of the staff at the Watts Towers Art Center, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, under the mentorship of renowned visual artist John Outterbridge where among his duties were curating and organizing arts programming. He acted as interim director for the William Grant Still Art Center for over a year. In 1989 Kamau, along with master drummer Billy Higgins, founded the World Stage Performance Gallery in Los Angeles, which still serves the community today. He is considered one of the cornerstones of the arts movement in Leimert Park, the area of Los Angeles where the World Stage is located. Daaood served as its Artistic Director for over fifteen years.

Daaood also formed, directed and toured with the performance group, An Army of Healers. Alongside Billy Higgins and Horace Tapscott, he has performed with such great artists as Charles Lloyd, Pharaoh Sanders, James Newton, Dr. Art Davis, Omar Sosa, Kurt Elling, Famoudou Don Moye, Roscoe Mitchell, Azar Lawrence, Nate Morgan, Dwight Trible, to name a few. Kamau has performed his works at countless venues that include the Dunya and North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland; Earshot Jazz and Bumbershoot Festivals in Seattle; the Steppenwolf Theater and Guild Complex in Chicago; the Getty, Hammer and MOCA Museums in Los Angeles; the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta; the Schomburg Center in Harlem, New York; the Alcazar library in Marseille; and the Banlieues Bleues Festivals in Bordeaux and Paris, France. Amid Daaood’s numerous honors and awards he has received the Visionary Mid-Level Career Grant, 2007, from the Asian Improv Arts thru Ford Foundation; Association of Jazz Journalists Award for a Lifetime of Service, 2006; the Charles Mingus Award, presented by Watts Towers Community Action Council, Cultural Affairs Department and Community Redevelopment Agency, 2005; a California Artist Fellowship, 2002; a Durfee Artist Fellowship, 2000; a Cave Canem Retreat Fellowship, 2000; the L.A. Artcore 10th Annual Award for Lifetime Contribution, 1998; and the Charles R. Drew University Jazz at Drew Lifetime Achievement Award in1997.

Kamau Daaood has received numerous proclamations and certificates of recognition from community, government, and educational institutions. He has spent fifty years performing, recording, curating, teaching and producing. This includes organizing and creating art in universities, churches, prisons, storefronts, arts venues, libraries, festivals, conferences, radio, television, museums, and galleries locally, nationally, and internationally. He resides in his native Los Angeles, California, with his wife of forty years, Baadia, five children and twelve grand children.  Find out more about Kamau @ www.KamauDaaood.com

Thea Monyeé is an accomplished self-identified Black Woman Creative with credits including appearances on HBO, BET, OWN, FOX SOUL;  consulted with FACEBOOK WATCH’s RED TABLE TALKS and TV One; performances at the legendary Ford Amphitheater and House of Blues in Los Angeles; countless college tours, and commissions to perform for the NAACP, Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, and other national organizations.

Thea Monyee´’s unapologetic work stems from her unwavering passion for healing and her belief that true healing can only occur in a liberated and non-oppressive society. She is the owner of MarleyAyo Creative Consulting, and the host of SHAPING THE SHIFT PODCAST. Monyeé is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a regular contributor to For Harriet and Black Girl in Om online publications, co-host of Dem Black Mamas podcast, Kinship Partner of Black Mamas Matter Alliance, and Director of Decolonization for the multimedia platform, Black Girl Mixtape. She serves as a contributor to SayWordLA, and is a board member of Manhood Camp for At-Risk males. Her most recent work Murmurs of a MadWoman: An Unconventional Memoir is available through Amazon, and she is a signed fiction writer with Dystel, Goderich & Bourret with upcoming projects. She is currently studying to add certified sex therapist to her list of credits. Monyee enjoys creating work that dives into the intersections of healing through decolonization of joy, pleasure, and mental health.  Find out more about Thea @  www.TheaMonyee.com

Oshea Kwa-Luja – author, entrepreneur, producer, life purpose coach, and award-winning poet. Oshea is a 2015 and 2017 award recipient from the Villagers Hall of Fame Awards Foundation.  With a list of books, albums, plays, curriculums and productions to his credit, Oshea has also found time to become a holistic wellness practitioner in the fields of love, life, and relationships.  This led to him co-authoring the best-selling book – Internal Balance: Would You Marry You? (2017).

Oshea, known artistically as Food4Thought, is also a visual, musical and literary artist. He’s co-produced and directed, Time with The Masters of Rhyme/A Watts Prophet and A Last Poet; co-produced, directed and starred in the production, Big City Bright Lights; and is currently featured in the documentaries Truce, directed by Drew Bachrach; Historic Watts, directed by Oshea Luja; and Internal Balance, directed by Donald Franklin. He is also featured in the theater production, The Fertile River, written by Vincent Terrell-Durham and produced by Alton Patton. 

Dubbed the “prince of poetry” by the late great Leimert Park Poet Dee Black, Oshea’s extremely potent spoken word delivery is like an iron fist inside of a silk glove. As a poet, Oshea has been featured on HBO, FoxSoul, CNN, NBC, ABC, Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam, and All Def Digital, to name a few. He has shared stages with many of the top recording artist in the industry. He is a longtime member of The Anansi Writers’ Workshop at the World-Stage in Leimert Park, CA. His first poetry collection, Royal Feast, A Literary Recipe, is an ode to his Watts, CA, upbringing. As a teaching artist, Oshea enjoys working with youth and elders, linking these generations together to better inner-stand the human experience. Oshea has a special gift of utilizing creative expression to promote the innate greatness that resides in all beings. A Watts CA, native, Oshea’s passion is reclaiming Watts’ storied history through art, culture and education.  

Oshea has written, edited, added an introduction, and co-authored over 30 manuscripts. He is the founder of Still Waters Publishing, a small press based in Los Angeles, CA, that focuses on Poetry, Non-Fiction, and History, particularly works that have an edge to them, or are completely distinct from works published by most large commercial presses. Stay tuned for Oshea’s highly anticipated book, Watts, conception & misconceptions (1906 – 2006), due to be released in the summer of 2021. Find out more about Oshea @ www.StillWatersEvents.com

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