Chinisha Scott
Chinisha Scott
The Ladies Roundtable Panelist
Chinisha Scott is an Emmy Award-winning, multi-hyphenate creator with nearly 20 years of experience in film, TV, and media production. She is passionate about music, science, environmental and social justice, and learning – they find their way into all that she creates.
She began her musical training at the age of nine and continued through grad school, with a brief stint as an engineering major in her freshman year of college. (She had Mae Jemison dreams of becoming an astronaut – here’s hoping they need filmmakers in space). Currently, her handiwork can be seen as a Segment Director at The Daily Show (Comedy Central).
Chinisha is a certified Prince super-fam, nerdy geek-girl, and cheerful nihilist with a penchant for witty, sometimes self-deprecating humor. She attended The New School, where she received her MA in Media Studies and a BA in Cinema Studies with a minor in African-American Studies from the CUNY Macaulay Honors College, cum laude.
Casey Rain
Casey Rain
of The Violet Reality
International Lovers Roundtable Panelist
Casey Rain is an internationally renowned songwriter, performer and musician known for his work with pioneering British Asian collective Swami. Swami have released albums on Sony/BMG, EMI and Universal Records, and their songs have featured in popular movies, video games and TV shows including both seasons of the Netflix hit series “Indian Matchmaking.”
Casey is also the co-founder of The Violet Reality. Along with Kim Camilia, they are a collective of musicians, artists, YouTubers, bloggers and content creators. Through their website and YouTube channel they are amongst the leading commentators on the life and career of Prince Rogers Nelson. Having been profiled in The New York Times, BBC and Consequence Of Sound amongst others, they have to date been the leading channel covering the posthumous releases from The Prince Estate, including working with Penguin Random House to promote Prince’s memoir, The Beautiful Ones, being granted media passes to officially cover the Celebration events at Paisley Park, and appearing as panelists at Celebration 2023.
C Liegh McInnis
C Liegh McInnis
Presentations Panel #1 Presenter
Part I: Come as the Introduction/EP to The Gold
Experience or When Life Imitates Art and/or Art
Imitates Life in the Artistic Production of Prince
My presentation on Come is part one of a two-part presentation with part two being on The Gold Experience (TGE). Connecting the two presentations, my goal is to show that Come and TGE are another example of how Prince’s art is a direct representation of his life, especially his constantly changing ideologies. As such, “Come as the Introduction/EP to The Gold Experience or When Life Imitates Art and/or Art Imitates Life in the Artistic Production of Prince” is part one. Then, part two is “The Gold Experience as the New, New Beginning in the Same Way that Every Seven to Ten Years There’s a New Negro.” To explain my position, in both presentations, I’m going to present alternative track lists for Come and TGE to show what I surmise is a more accurate reflection of what Prince intended for both albums to be and to show how life influenced the creation of both works and how life influenced the altering or changing of both works. I’ll also reference older albums to show how Prince often used them to draw a line in the sand to say his old self stops at this point so that his new self can begin here to show that’s what he’s doing with Come and TGE and to show that this was nothing new for him.
C Liegh McInnis is a poet, short story writer, Prince scholar, retired instructor of English at Jackson State University, the former publisher and editor of Black Magnolias Literary Journal, and the author of eight books, including four collections of poetry, one collection of short fiction (Scripts: Sketches and Tales of Urban Mississippi), one work of literary criticism (The Lyrics of Prince: A Literary Look at a Creative, Musical Poet, Philosopher, and Storyteller), and one co-authored work, Brother Hollis: The Sankofa of a Movement Man, which discusses the life of a legendary Mississippi Civil Rights icon. He is also a former First Runner-Up of the Amiri Baraka/Sonia Sanchez Poetry Award sponsored by North Carolina State A&T and edited the Black Magnolias Special Prince Issue. He has presented papers at national conferences, such as College Language Association, the National Council of Black Studies, the Neo-Griot Conference, and the Black Arts Movement Festival, and his work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Obsidian, Tribes, The Southern Quarterly, Konch Magazine, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Journal of Popular Music and Society, Down to the Dark River: An Anthology of Poems on the Mississippi River, Black Hollywood Unchained: Essays about Hollywood’s Portrayal of African Americans, Black Panther: Paradigm Shift or Not? A Collection of Reviews and Essays on the Blockbuster Film, Asymptote, The Pierian, Black Gold: An Anthology of Black Poetry, Sable, New Delta Review, The Black World Today, In Motion Magazine, MultiCultural Review, A Deeper Shade, New Laurel Review, ChickenBones, Oxford American, Journal of Ethnic American Literature, B. K. Nation, Red Ochre Lit, and Brick Street Press Anthology. In January of 2009, C. Liegh, along with eight other poets, was invited by the NAACP to read poetry in Washington, DC, for their Inaugural Poetry Reading celebrating the election of President Barack Obama. He has also been invited by colleges and libraries all over the country to read his poetry and fiction and to lecture on various topics, such as creative writing and various aspects of African American literature, music, and history.
Arthur Turnbull
Arthur Turnbull
Co-Host & Four You + One Music Snob Roundtable Panelist
Arthur Turnbull began a career in technology as Technical Wizard for Jellyvision, makers of the video game series You Don’t Know Jack. He continued on as Technology Manager for Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, a leader in third stream. In 2018, he started Arturo Solo LLC, a managed services consultancy. Arthur is also a co-founder of Wildflower LLC, home to The Music Snobs, Mad Unreal, Snobs On Film, and Entry Points podcasts.
Anil Dash
Anil Dash
Four You Crew Roundtable Panelist
Anil Dash is recognized advocate for more humane, inclusive, and ethical technology through his work as an entrepreneur, activist, and writer, honored by the Webby Awards with its lifetime achievement award in 2022. Today, he leads Fastly’s Developer Experience team, which provides the tools that the world’s most innovative developers use to build experiences that make the internet better for billions of users every day. Dash joined Fastly with its acquisition of Glitch in 2022, where he served as CEO of the friendly coding community beloved by millions of developers.
Dash also serves as a board member for organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the pioneering nonprofit organization defending digital privacy and expression, The Markup, the leading nonprofit investigative newsroom pushing for tech accountability, and the Lower East Side Girls Club, which serves girls and families in need in New York City. Previously, Dash was an advisor to the Obama White House’s Office of Digital Strategy, was co-chair of the Obama Foundation’s tech advisory council, served for a decade on the board of Stack Overflow, the world’s largest community for coders, and was a founding board member of the Data & Society Research Institute, which researches the cutting edge of tech’s impact on society. Today, he continues to advise respected startups and non-profits including DonorsChoose, Medium, The Human Utility, and Project Include. In 2009, he led a MacArthur-backed research project carrying out pioneering research on social media’s impact on public policy making. And, during his tenure as CEO of Glitch, the company became the first tech startup ever to voluntarily recognize its workers’ union.
Described by The New Yorker as a “blogging pioneer”, and by the New York Times as a “Prince scholar”, his personal website has been cited in hundreds of newspapers, academic papers and journals. As a writer and artist, Dash was a contributing editor and monthly columnist for Wired, has written for publications including The Atlantic, Rolling Stone and Businessweek, co-created one of the first implementations of the technology now known as NFTs, had his work exhibited in the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and collaborated with Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda on one of the most popular Spotify playlists of 2018.
Back when Twitter was relevant, Time named @anildash one of the best accounts on Twitter, and he is the only person ever retweeted by both Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Prince, a succinct summarization of Dash’s interests. Dash has also been a keynote speaker and guest in a broad range of media and events ranging from the Aspen Ideas Festival to Desus and Mero’s late-night show, and has guested on a surprisingly large number of your favorite podcasts.
Dash is based in New York City, where he lives with his wife Alaina Browne and their son Malcolm. Like most people, he has never played a round of golf, drank a cup of coffee, filed a patent, or graduated from college.
Aisha K. Staggers
Aisha K. Staggers
Ladies Roundtable Panelist
Aisha K. Staggers had her first major publication, an album review, in The New Haven Register while just a sophomore in high school. Another series of reviews published in The Hartford Courant followed. By the time she reached college, Aisha was writing for the literary magazine and interning at a local radio station, ABC-affiliate as a writer in the news department and in the A&R department of an independent record company.
As a graduate student at Fisk University, Aisha asked Dr. Raymond Winbush to chair her thesis because 1) he was one of the most renowned voices in black culture and academia, and 2) he was a Prince fan. His scholarship and guidance led Aisha to an early career as a professor of social sciences and later an administrator in higher education.
Aisha has also served as a director of education and policy research centers and on the staff of legislative commissions. She previously served on the Executive Board of the CT Young Democrats’ Women’s Caucus as an avid campaigner and has remained active in politics and public policy.
Currently, she is the co-host of “Primetime Saturday with Aisha and Lala” airing Saturdays on The Dr. Vibe Show.