Violet Brown
Violet Brown
Ladies Roundtable Roundtable Panelist
Violet Brown is a Civil Rights Attorney, Constitutional Law Professor, Musician, and … PrinceGirl4Ever. Raised by two Prince Fam Parents (dad especially) she grew up on his music; Purple Rain being the first song she learned to play on keys, Musicology being the tour that changed her life. In addition to helping cultivate diversity in the Minnesota Law School and Legal Worlds, Violet plays bass, keeps positivity flowing about Prince, music in general, and all things related via her social media, and has traveled the globe visiting Prince-related historical locations, attending concerts, and continuing to support The Work of Real Music by Real Musicians.
Scott Woods
Scott Woods
Presentations Panel #2 Presenter
The Poetry, Pain and Power of “Solo”
“Solo” is a rare gem in Prince’s catalog: a collaboration that took almost no effort to realize, but stands as one of the most powerful examples of Prince’s vocal prowess, as well as his palate for poetic interpretation. Calling himself a poet first, Prince takes the work of Henry David Hwang and creates something so haunting that he only performs it live once in his entire career. Looking at the origin, production, and parallels of “Solo” raises more questions than it answers.
Scott Woods is the Emmy award-winning author or editor of two poetry collections (Urban Contemporary History Month, 2016, and We Over Here Now, 2013) and a collection of essays on Prince (Prince and Little Weird Black Boy Gods, 2017). He is the founder of Streetlight Guild, an award-winning, performing arts nonprofit. He has been featured multiple times in national press, including multiple appearances on National Public Radio. He was the president of Poetry Slam, Inc., is the co-founder of the Writers’ Block Poetry Night, and co-hosts the Race Against The Machine and The Purple Canon podcasts. In April of 2006, he became the first poet to ever complete a 24-hour solo poetry reading, a feat he bested seven more times without repeating a single poem.
Rhonda Nicole
Rhonda Nicole
Ladies Roundtable Moderator
Rhonda Nicole is a Los Angeles-based independent singer/songwriter, music journalist, and social and digital marketing executive whose life officially turned purple in 1984. As the managing editor for the now-defunct SoulTrain.com, she interviewed a number of Prince-related artists including Jill Jones, Taja Sevelle, fDeluxe, Liv Warfield, and Andy Allo. Blending her passion for music and expertise in digital marketing, Rhonda Nicole developed and led social media strategy for the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville. She’s a proud member of the Los Angeles chapter of the Recording Academy,where she serves on the Advocacy Committee; Songwriters of North America (SONA); and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Rhonda Nicole’s 2010 debut EP, ‘Nuda Veritas’, and self-produced releases ‘Radical Ecstasy’, ‘Home’, ‘LOVER’, and her latest single,”Love Letters,” are available on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms.
Miles Marshall Lewis
Miles Marshall Lewis
Four You Crew Roundtable Panelist
Miles Marshall Lewis is the Cultural Historian of The Hip Hop Musuem, a pop-culture critic, essayist and fiction writer based in Harlem. A former editor at Vibe, XXL, Ebony.com, and BET.com, his essays and arts journalism have appeared in GQ, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Essence, Ebony, and many other publications. His infamous 2015 interview with Prince has been anthologized in Prince on Prince: Interviews and Encounters. He’s also the author of Promise That You Will Sing About Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamar, and is currently penning another cultural biography, The Lunatic’s Manifesto: Dave Chappelle in Black & White, for 2025.
Marc Wiggins
Marc Wiggins
Fellas Roundtable Roundtable Panelist
Left school in 10th grade to work as a roadie with Bay Area bands including Journey, Santana, and Night Ranger.
Decided to go college in 1985 after a discussion with Journey guitarist Neal Schon.
Essentially went from completing 9th grade straight to CSU Sacramento.
In 1987 while in college, I became a Pro Wrestler, which was a LOT of fun, but a Cornea Transplant in 1990 ended that.
In 2005, I had an essay published in the autobiography of Hall of fame Wrestler Dusty Rhodes, Memories of An American Dream.
After completing law school and being admitted to the Bar, a judge suggested that I become an agent. I did the research and at the time the NFL was the only one that required a test for certification.
So I gave them a call and set it up.
So in the population of “dropouts who go from 9th grade to being a roadie then directly to college, spending time in the wrestling ring, becoming a California attorney, then becoming an NFL certified contract advisor and member of the United States Supreme Court Bar Association and Grammy member,” as of now only has one person: Me.
Karen Gabay
Karen Gabay
International Lovers Roundtable Panelist
Karen Gabay is an award-winning community filmmaker, radio broadcaster, and TV producer.
Karen has interviewed musicians, songwriters, engineers, journalists and producers within the field of music & entertainment including Dionne Warwick, Laura Mvula, Jam & Lewis, Mark Ronson, Swing Out Sister, KeKe Palmer, Samm Henshaw, Daley, George Clinton, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Roachford & Kerry Washington.
She has produced landmark network TV programs for UK television including First Ladies of Hip-Hop (BBC) that reflected on the untold stories of women in US & UK Hip_Hop, Prince: A Purple Reign, Reggae Brittannia (UNESCO award) & When Motown Came to Britain, and recently wrote and produced a 2-hour radio special on Quincy Jones for BBC Radio 2.
She has produced groundbreaking music content programming encouraging children to embrace music, working with leading musicians including Nile Rodgers, Gregory Porter, and Daniel Pemberton.
Karen is a radio presenter and producer for over two decades, presenting and reporting on music and the arts for Kiss FM, Radio 1, 5Live and the World Service.
Karen presents one of the BBC’s longest-running shows, The People, and has interviewed many artists and film/video directors at the start of their careers including Amy Winehouse, Lil Nas X and Ryan Coogler & has recorded sessions with artists that include Hollie Cook, Laura White & Lemar, as well as recording in-depth interviews with many of the creatives and writers linked to Prince,
Karen regularly lectures on black music history & race and portrayal on-screen focusing on the untold social histories of musicians, and the black x migrant experience.
Karen is a champion of music storytelling through inter-generational community & research engagement, women in music, and the value of music education for young people.
KaNisa Williams
KaNisa Williams
Ladies Roundtable Moderator
KaNisa Williams is a lifelong computer enthusiast with a passion for humanizing technology. As an avid gamer and programmer from the age of 4 via her family’s Tandy 2000, she has grown up with a vested interest in technology, developing websites for local arts organizations from the age of 11, graduating from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and turning her love affair with digital solutions into a career in Human-Computer Interaction and Organizational Ergonomics.
KaNisa is currently a Chief Engineer / Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton. In this role she works as a consultant in agile and product management strategy transformations for large organizations, teaches classes in these topics, and coaches teams in optimizing their group dynamics!
Outside of work life, KaNisa is known as “Darling Nisi” and she lends her talents to help be a purple signal boost, especially in regard to self-reflection through the study and appreciation of Prince. She is the host of the Muse 2 the Pharaoh podcast, where she explores purple topics from a female perspective. KaNisa also maintains a purple presence on Tumblr and Twitter to help spread the message of compassion toward others, but more importantly toward self, through the lessons found in the music of Prince.
Kamilah Cummings
Kamilah Cummings
Presentations Panel #2 Presenter
The Evolution Will B Colorized:
Facing Race in the Music of Prince
In 1984, Prince achieved the greatest crossover success of his career with the triumvirate of the Purple Rain soundtrack, film, and tour. With it, he demonstrated not only his musical prowess but also his brilliance as a black artist who knew how to market himself to a mainstream white audience. However, just a decade later with the release of the Come album, Prince embarked on his iconic mission to emancipate himself from his record label. At the same time, he boldly proclaimed the death of an iteration of his persona that no longer suited him.
The aptly titled track “Race,” from the Come album represents the end of Prince’s ambiguous, Pollyanna approach to race in his music. As Cedric Burrows argues in his book Rhetorical Crossover: The Black Presence in White Culture, to achieve mainstream success with white audiences, black artists are compelled to ignore race or espouse colorblindness in their music. Prince was no different. Early in his career, references to race were situated in fantasies of colorblind utopia. However, as his career progressed, Prince’s treatment of race in his music evolved from simplistic oblique references to more complex direct statements and indictments. He moved away from presentations of his own racial ambiguity to situate himself as a member of the black community and a participant in its ongoing liberation movement—to the consternation of some fans. Using Burrows’ framework for the stages of rhetorical crossover, this presentation will examine Prince’s lyrical evolution from utopian dreamer to black liberationist.
Kamilah Cummings is a writer, editor, and visiting senior lecturer at DePaul University in Chicago. She has presented on Prince at Purple Reign, the first academic Prince conference (University of Salford, UK), and at Polished Solid Prince symposia at New York University, Spelman College, and online. She has also presented on Prince at The 2021 Pop Convergence (PopCon). Her work on Prince has been published in the Howard Journal of Communications special issue Prince in/as Blackness . . . and Prince and Popular Music: Critical Perspectives on an Interdisciplinary Life (Bloomsbury). She has also created the course, Prince: A New Breed Leader. A House music researcher as well, she created the course The House Chicago Built, has presented on House music at Black Portraiture[s] IV (Harvard University), and appears in the documentary The Woodstock of House. She is passionate about exploring the intersections of race and identity in media and pop culture, with a particular focus on centering blackness in the narratives of black people.
Hasit Shah
Hasit Shah
International Lovers Moderator
Hasit Shah is an editor at Quartz, a research fellow at Harvard University, and a former senior producer at BBC News. He is from London.
Michael Dean
Michael Dean
What did Prince Do Think Week?
Roundtable Panelist
Michael Dean started his journey in the arts back in 1988 as an up-and-coming rapper in the Seattle hip-hop scene. The release of his independent single “The Master,” lead to a mention in the Source magazine. Michael lent his talents on keyboard and vocals touring the midwest with The Evil Tambourines (SubPop), opening for Sir Mix-O-Lot in 1999. From there Michael joined the business side of the music business and operated a CD/DVD replication business for 15 years.
In 1995 Michael started to blog about Prince on the internet. Michael, along with a few others, was invited to a private online chat with Prince to discuss his involvement in creating a website for the musical icon. (Love4oneanother) Michael respectfully declined but was so honored to be considered that he was inspired to start a new website called ‘FreedomTrainOnline’ which would morph into The Prince Podcast. For over 15 years, The Prince Podcast, now called Podcast On Prince, has done in-depth interviews with band members and associates. Featured in the Huffington Press and Forbes. Michael recently moderated the event ‘Prince: From Minneapolis to the World’ for the Minnesota Historical Society.
Michael came back to his musical roots in 2010 and has since released 3 albums: Stroke The Mind B4 The Behind, Rainydayjams Vol.1, and Lake Minnetonka AKA What I Learned From Prince.
Michael also added author to his list of talents. His first science fiction novel Truths Destiny (The Destiny Saga) (Volume 1) was released in 2014.