Shungudzo

 Shungudzo is a Zimbabwean artist, songwriter and producer whose ambitions span far outside of music. She is also a poet who has written a poem almost every day since she was five. Shun was the first female of color to compete on the Zimbabwean National Gymnastics team. She did a lot of her early training at home, after being denied entry into training programs because of the color of her skin. Once she won her way into a program, her teammates went so far as to beat her up during practice breaks, and spit at her while practicing. At the same time, her family was endangered for refusing the ideals of the nation's dictator, Robert Mugabe. Growing up in a post-colonial Zimbabwe and then moving to a broken America, in a broken family, shaped Shun and her socio-political ambitions as a person and musician.  

Shun began taking college courses at 12, educated herself for the last year of high school, received a scholarship to Stanford University, and ran a journalism company before she became a full-time musician. She took that leap because she felt it was a better way to bring people together at a time when the news was growing increasingly polarizing. It is her goal to tell stories that move hearts, change minds, and ultimately impact people, and society, in meaningful ways — and to work with others who hope to achieve the same. 

After a long hold on being able to release music (outside of features), Shungudzo is finally gearing up to release her debut album, “I’m not a mother, but I have children” – which she wrote and produced earlier this summer during the civil rights protests across the world. According to Shun, “For this compilation, I chose to forget every rule I’ve ever heard, and instead do what felt most natural to me. I wrote, recorded and produced these songs at home, and to retain the authenticity of my story, didn’t allow any outside input or instrumentation until my vision for each song was unshakable. I hope these songs inspire you to think deeply about who you are and who you want to be. I hope they plant love, water, hope and unearth the kind of frustration that motivates you to grow and to encourage growth within your community.”

As a songwriter, Shungudzo has penned songs for artists such as The Chainsmokers, Little Mix, Jessie Ware, and Chiiild.

Chinaka Hodge

 Chinaka Hodge is a poet, educator, playwright, and screenwriter from Oakland. She received her BA from NYU’s Gallatin School, and studied Writing for Film and Television at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts MFA program. Chinaka has served as Educator, Program Director and Associate Artistic Director at Youth Speaks/The Living Word Project, she is a Senior Fellow at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and serves on the Advisory Board at Marin Headlands Center for the Arts.   Chinaka has been recognized as a Glide Legacy Gala Honoree, an Oakland Indie Award winner in the category of Oakland Soul, one of Diablo Magazine’s 40 under 40, and one of KQED’s Women to Watch. Her 2016 book of poems, "Dated Emcees," won Northern California Independent Booksellers Association’s Book of the Year, and was nominated for the Northern California Book Award. Chinaka is currently working as a screenwriter in Los Angeles. Her credits include Jason Katims' “Rise,” TNT's highly anticipated “Snowpiercer” and Steven Spielberg's Apple+ project, “Amazing Stories.”

Laura Silverman

 Laura Silverman is an actress and a writer who is best known for her roles in “Dr. Katz,” “The Comeback,” “The Sarah Silverman Program,” and “Bob’s Burgers.”

Rexx Life Raj

 Rexx Life Raj makes music for the brain and heart that’s still pleasant to the ears. Raised by a god-fearing mother and a Black Panther father in the Mecca of progressive politics, Raj’s music perfectly articulates the beauty and struggle of being a young black adult in 2020. Raj transitions from hilarious anecdotes and clever bullshit to heartfelt gems about relationships, the loss of his best friend Devin, and self-reflection, often making him both teacher and class clown on the same record. With his ability to shift seamlessly from rapping his ass off to signing his heart out, Rexx life Raj has become one of the Bay Area music’s most critically acclaimed voices. To date, Raj’s music has accumulated over 120 million plays across all platforms. 

Winnie Holzman

 Winnie Holzman is the writer (with composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz) of the hit musical Wicked. She got her start writing for the groundbreaking TV drama “thirtysomething,” and went on to create another memorable series-- “My So-Called Life” starring Claire Danes. She later executive produced (again with her mentors Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick) the series “Once and Again” and (with her daughter, Savannah Dooley) the ABC Family Series “Huge.” Most recently, she collaborated with Cameron Crowe and J.J. Abrams on the Showtime series “Roadies.” Sometimes recognized as the chocolate-obsessed woman in the beloved movie Jerry Maguire and as Larry David’s wife’s therapist on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Holzman is a graduate of Princeton University, and holds an MFA from the NYU Musical Theatre Program.

Sara Bareilles

 Sara Bareilles first achieved mainstream critical praise in 2007 with her widely successful hit "Love Song,” which reached No. 1 in 22 countries around the world from her debut album “Little Voice.” Since then, Sara has taken home a Grammy award, received seven Grammy® nominations, two Tony nominations and three Emmy nominations. Her book, “Sounds Like Me: MyLife (So Far) in Song,” was released in the fall of 2015 by Simon & Schuster and is a New York Times best seller. Making her Broadway debut, Sara composed the music and lyrics for “Waitress,” and made her Broadway acting debut in 2017 by stepping into the show’s lead role.  On April 5, 2019 Sara released her fifth full-length and first album of original material since 2013, entitled “Amidst The Chaos.” For this latest body of work, she joined forces in the studio with legendary Academy® Award-winning producer T Bone Burnett.  As a result, the album spotlights her voice as a singer and storyteller like never before, while making an enduring statement. Recently, Sara teamed up with Apple as an executive producer for “Little Voice” a 10-episode series, for which she created the original music. 

DavEED DIGGS

 Tony, Grammy, and Lucille Lortel Award winning actor, writer, rapper and producer Daveed Diggs, is widely known for originating the dual roles of ‘Thomas Jefferson’ and ‘Marquis de Lafayette’ in the Broadway sensation, “Hamilton,” for which he won a Tony Award. The “Hamilton” movie, which was filmed onstage at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in June 2016 and features Diggs’ award-winning performance, is now streaming on Disney+.

Diggs co-wrote, produced and starred in the critically acclaimed Lionsgate feature, “Blindspotting,” which Peter DeBruge at Variety called, “the most exciting cinematic take on contemporary race relations since “Do The Right Thing” nearly 30 years ago.” In addition to receiving an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his performance, Eric Kohn of IndieWire deemed Diggs “an instant movie star.” Following the film’s success, Diggs is co-writing and executive producing the television spinoff starring Jasmine Cephas Jones, currently in development at Starz.

This past year, Diggs wrapped the independent feature “The Starling,” opposite Melissa McCarthy, and lent his voice to Pixar’s upcoming animated feature, “Soul,” co-starring Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey. Diggs previously starred in Lionsgate’s “Wonder” opposite Julia Roberts, in the Netflix thriller “Velvet Buzzsaw” opposite Jake Gyllenhaal, and in Fox’s animated film “Ferdinand” opposite Kate McKinnon.

On television, Diggs currently stars in TNT’s series “Snowpiercer” opposite Jennifer Connelly, and will next appear in Showtime’s “The Good Lord Bird” opposite Ethan Hawke. He has also lent his voice to Apple’s “Central Park,” Netflix’s “Green Eggs and Ham," Amazon’s “Undone,” Fox’s “Bob’s Burgers," Netflix’s “Bojack Horseman,” Apple’s “Edendale,” and Disney “XD’s Star Wars.” Other television credits include ABC’s Emmy-nominated series “Blackish,” Netflix’s hit comedy “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” HBO’s “Tour de Pharmacy,” NBC’s “Law  & Order: SVU,” Netflix’s “The Get Down,” created by visionary director Baz Luhrmann. Diggs also executive produced ABC’s “The Mayor” and a variety of digital shorts for ESPN.  

Diggs recently returned to the stage in The Public Theater’s production of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Outer Critics Circle Award winning play “White Noise” directed by Oskar Eustis. Ben Brantley of the New York Times hailed his return to the stage as his “breakout performance as a dramatic star.” 

Diggs is a member of the West Coast-based experimental hip-hop trio, “clipping.” He has toured nationally and internationally, both as a solo artist and with “clipping,” playing venues such as the Sonar Festival in Barcelona; Off Festival in Krakow; ATP Iceland in Keflavic; and Brooklyn's AfroPunk Fest. Special engagement bookings include the Red Bull Music Academy and Moog Electronics.  The group was also nominated for a Hugo Award for their sophomore album, Splendor & Misery, and Simon and Schuster recently released a novel based on their acclaimed single “The Deep.”

MILCK

 Los Angeles pop singer/songwriter MILCK is a first-generation American born to Chinese immigrants. Connie Lim studied classical piano at a young age, later teaching herself to write pop songs while attending college at Berkeley. Over the next decade, Lim plied her trade in the music industry, paying dues, writing songs, and performing under her given name before re-emerging as MILCK in 2016. "Quiet," would be the song that eventually brought her widespread acclaim. Inspired by her own experiences with domestic abuse and trauma as a 14-year-old, Lim debuted it live during the Women's March in Washington, D.C., alongside a choir of strangers with whom she'd barely rehearsed. A video spontaneously recorded from the crowd soon went viral, and within a month Lim signed a deal with Atlantic Records. She made her major-label debut a year later with the EP "This Is Not the End."