Jason Orr
Jason Orr
The Fellas Roundtable Panelist
Jason Orr is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, marketing consultant, cultural arts curator, and festival producer, most notably, FunkJazz Kafé Arts & Music Festival and Life Arts Documentary Film Festival + Music Conference. He’s the director, writer, and producer of the award-winning documentary film, “FunkJazz Kafé: Diary Of A Decade”, producer of the award-winning “Maynard” documentary on former Atlanta mayor and visionary, Maynard Jackson, producer/director of “Stepping Into Tomorrow’ and director of “Hoodwinked: The Nigga Factory,” a web series produced by Speech of Arrested Development.
Orr has also produced and directed short films and music videos with several mainstream artists such as Meshell Ndegeocello, UK artist Omar Lye-Fook, Dionne Farris, and Van Hunt.
On-screen, Orr has appeared as himself on TV One’s hit series “Unsung,” Centric’s “Leading Ladies – India Arie,” and the 2023 Atlanta Journal Constitution documentary, The South Got Something To Say, providing expertise commentary on music and social history.
In 2014, he received a proclamation from the City of Atlanta for his contributions to the city’s music, film, and cultural arts communities.
Elliott H. Powell
Elliott H. Powell
Four You Crew Roundtable Panelist
Elliott H. Powell, Ph.D., is the Beverly and Richard Fink Professor in Liberal Arts and Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of Sounds from the Other Side: Afro-South Asian Collaborations in Black Popular Music, which received the Woody Guthrie Book Award from the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, as well as the Philip Brett Book Award from the American Musicological Society. He’s currently at work on a new book titled Prince, Porn, and Public Space, which examines the intertwined worlds of music and sex in Minneapolis during the 1980s.
Erica Thompson
Erica Thompson
Presentations Panel #3 Presenter
"You Don't Think God is Sexy?"
Three Interpretations of "Come"
Death and resurrection have always been strong themes within Prince’s body of work. Within the broader story he was trying to convey in the early to mid 1990s – or was making up as he went along – these themes are obvious. In the summer of 1993 Prince ‘died’ and resurrected as the ineffable one depicted as the symbol we have come to know all too well. One could see the ‘Come’ album as Prince’s journey through the underworld with its counterpart The Gold Experience as the resurrection in the form of ‘symbol’. In many ways that journey through the underworld is connected to 1993’s ‘Glam Slam Ulysses’ stage play. This presentation tries to connect the dots between Homer’s depiction of the aftermath of the Trojan war and the aftermath of Prince’s war with his record label.
Erica Thompson is a features reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times. Her articles have also appeared on Hapersbazaar.com, Billboard.com, Mic.com, HuffPost.com and TVLine.com.Her writing on race and gender has garnered awards from the National Association for Black Journalists, Society of Professional Journalists, Press Club of Cleveland, and the Ohio Associated Press Media Editors.
A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Thompson has a master’s degree in journalism from Ohio University’s acclaimed E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, where she completed her thesis on Prince. She was invited to present her research on Prince’s spirituality at Purple Reign: An interdisciplinary conference on the life and legacy of Prince at the University of Salford, UK; the Prince from Minneapolis symposium at the University of Minnesota; the Prince EYE NO: Lovesexy symposium at New York University (NYU), the virtual Prince #DM40GB30 symposium at NYU; the virtual Prince #1plus1plus1is3 symposium at NYU; and the #SexyMF30 virtual symposium at NYU.
She has been published in Theology and Prince, an edited collection on theology and the life, music, and films of Prince Rogers Nelson. She is currently finishing her first book, a comprehensive study of Prince’s spiritual journey.
Edgar Kruize
Edgar Kruize
Presentations Panel #1 Presenter
Come As Prince’s Odyssey Through The Underworld
Death and resurrection have always been strong themes within Prince’s body of work. Within the broader story he was trying to convey in the early to mid 1990s – or was making up as he went along – these themes are obvious. In the summer of 1993 Prince ‘died’ and resurrected as the ineffable one depicted as the symbol we have come to know all too well. One could see the ‘Come’ album as Prince’s journey through the underworld with its counterpart The Gold Experience as the resurrection in the form of ‘symbol’. In many ways that journey through the underworld is connected to 1993’s ‘Glam Slam Ulysses’ stage play. This presentation tries to connect the dots between Homer’s depiction of the aftermath of the Trojan war and the aftermath of Prince’s war with his record label.
Edgar Kruize is a freelance author, journalist and content creator based in the Netherlands. He is co-owner of communications agency buro33. He is specialized in music in general and specifically the entertainment industry. Kruize has been working for various (trade) magazines, concert and tour promoters, festival organizers and record companies for over two decades. He has written nine books on various musical subjects.
All it took was a cough in the Raspberry Beret video to have the young Edgar notice the artist he’d later found out to be Prince. Prince’s impressive body of work has been an inspiration in life and work. Kruize is the author of the book Prince: The Dutch Experience (2017), in which all of Prince’s steps in the Netherlands are retraced. He’s curently working on an updated (international) edition. Also, he co-hosts the Dutch Prince-blog PurplePicks.net, wrote the liner notes for the 2019 Sign “O” The Times deluxe DVD/Blu-ray set (along with appearing in the documentary about the making of that movie), and (co)hosted multiple Prince-themed lectures and live interviews. He is also the co-host of the #PrinceTwitterThread series.