Hip Hop Congress

Board of Directors

Amer Ahmed: Co-Chair

Amer Ahmed is an individual with an eclectic personal and professional experience. As a Hip Hop activist, spoken word poet (www.myspace.com/dawahpoetmusic), Diversity consultant (www.oneummahconsulting.com) and college administrator, he channels his diverse experiences into work geared towards effective change serving to create mutual benefit for all. His education, global experience and role in Hip Hop Congress supports his efforts to address issues of social justice that continue to face traditionally marginalized communities. He is also engaged in the field of Intercultural Communication drawing from the work of Dr. Milton J. Bennett and others who focus on a developmental approach to Intercultural competency. Such approaches have been useful in his work in Organizational Assessment and Development, Workshop facilitation, Public Speaking, Leadership Development and Student Support. Amer currently serves as Associate Director of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs (www.mesa.umich.edu) at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.

Bakari Kitwana-Co Chair

Bakari Kitwana is co-founder of the first ever National Hip-Hop Political Convention and the author of The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture (Basic Books, 2002). The former executive editor of The Source, Kitwana has been acknowledged as an expert on hip-hop politics by the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, The O’Reilly Factor and other leading news outlets, his writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Savoy, The Nation, the Village Voice, Black Book and other publications. Kitwana also writes a column on hip-hop and youth culture called “Do the Knowledge” for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and is a consultant on hip-hop for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The author of The Rap on Gangsta Rap (Third World Press, 1994), he’s been a visiting scholar in the political science department at Kent State University and has lectured on hip-hop at colleges and universities across the country for the last decade, including Harvard University, New York University, Columbia University and Standford University. His new book Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop: Wankstas, Wiggers, Wannabes and the New Reality of Race in America (Basic Books, June 2005) is about race and hip-hop culture. Kitwana holds Masters degrees in English and Education from the University of Rochester.

Jansett Belovodia-Treasurer

Jansett Belovodia began her career as a professional actress after obtaining a BFA in Theatre Arts but soon determined that her calling was to transcend personal ambition and embrace the needs of the world around her. She has worked as a registered interpreter for the deaf in Delaware, D.C., and Watts. She has served as a healer, minister, certified yoga instructor, and animal communicator, but she has also worked as a waitress, legislative aide on Capitol Hill and associate secretary of the board of trustees at Stanford University. Throughout, she has vigorously engaged in volunteer work including Project Appalachia, the Winnebago reservation in Nebraska, the International Medical Corps (medical relief effort for the children of Afghanistan) and the Lokenath Mission of Calcutta (medical and educational assistance to people from the slums and villages of Bengal). She produced a CD for the Tibetan Drepung Gomang Monks in 1999, which enables them to continue to raise funds around the world. She has edited several publications, including Adisa Banjoko’s Lyrical Swords I: Hip Hop and Politics in the Mix and Lyrical Swords II: Westside Rebellion. She served for over eight years as associate director and board member for a nonprofit youth center in Menlo Park, California, and on the board of the Abhidyan Yoga Institute for two years.

Jordan Bromley-Secretary

Prior to his legal career, Jordan Bromley co-founded the Hip Hop Congress, an international non-profit organization that uses hip hop music and culture to inspire social and civic action among young people. With 40 chapters, it is the nation’s largest hip hop organization. He created Golden Mean Management, an artist management company and record label based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. Before beginning his own label, he worked for a national record labels and music publishing house.

Anasa Troutman

Anasa Troutman has spent her life growing into an artist, producer, strategist and activist-organizer, developing her personal mission to use arts, entertainment and mass media for issue awareness, social change and personal transformation. She began her career working with soul music singers, writers and musicians in Atlanta. Among her first group of clients was an unknown singer/songwriter named India Arie, whose simple combination of voice and guitar was meant for personal healing and social change. Anasa’s work with India led to a platinum-selling album and an international concert tour, proving to Anasa that her vision of using art and mass media to create global and personal change was real. In the years that followed, Anasa has served as a member of the National Coordinating Committee for the National Hip Hop Political Convention, as a member organizer for the Institute for Policy Study’s Cities for Progress Program, as the Urban Marketing Strategist for the Dennis Kucinich campaign for the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination, as Consulting Producer for the Young Peoples Project’s “Finding Our Folk” Tour, and as an organizer with the Progressive Majority’s Racial Justice Campaign. In all her work, Anasa uses arts and culture to create justice, opportunity and compassion.

Ron Gubitz

Ron Gubitz co-founded the Hip Hop Congress while a sophomore at USC. After transferring to Indiana University, he helped establish a chapter there. Graduating in 2002, he moved to St. Louis teaching high school English through the Teach For America program. After teaching for four years, Ron joined Teach For America’s staff as a Recruitment Director before transitioning into the Managing Director of Program role in the St. Louis region.
Ron has completed two marathons, cultivated vegetable gardens, and plays the guitar with minimal success. His first three albums could be considered commercial failures but did establish the genre of Funhop. He is also co-Founder of the Tuba Respect Society, Insubordinatetothefunk.com and gordongoodtimes.com.

Kristine M. Wright

Tina Wright received her doctorate in Sociology from the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She is a lecturer at California State University, Long Beach, where she teaches courses on Race, Class and Gender, and Social Stratification. She also is an instructor for the “Sociology of Popular Culture - Examining Hip Hop” class at UCI, which she created and began teaching in 2001. Wright authors commentaries on hip hop issues published on various web sites (www.daveyd.com and www.blackelectorate.com), under the title “Rise Up Hip Hop Nation, Wise Up.” In terms of her personal passion for hip hop, Wright states, “Although I grew up with hip hop (literally), my interest in hip hop today is not so much in its artistic forms of expression, but in its people and their social and political freedom from oppression. For me hip hop has and always will be foremost about the people it represents and our struggles.”