Randy Ferguson
Randy Ferguson
Romance 1600 Roundtable
Randy Ferguson is a DJ, musician, playlist curator, musicologist, and diversity & inclusion professional. He received his bachelor’s in Economics and his master’s in Higher Educational Administration, both at Stony Brook University. He currently works at NewYork-Presbyterian as a Program Manager in Diversity and Inclusion.
His love of music has been with him all his life. He went into music as a hobby, as he started writing lyrics and composing music by the age of 12. He started learning how to produce music by the age of 14. Then, he started DJing by 19, which he currently does.
His curated playlists, as he describes his playlists “as an album listening experience.” He has curated up to 20 playlists. He is a huge fan of Prince, Michael Jackson, and Stevie Wonder (his top 3 artists of all time) and studied their music and life, which opened the doors for him to become a musicologist. He hopes to dedicate his life to music by starting hisHe hopes to dedicate his life to music by starting his own entertainment conglomerate company.
Melissa A. Weber
Melissa A. Weber
The Family Roundtable
Melissa A. Weber is an artist-scholar and music historian whose areas of interest and expertise include 20th century popular music, the music and culture of her native New Orleans, and archives. Her expertise and research has resulted in writing and/or presentations for the American Musicological Society, Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Pop Conference, Radio Preservation Task Force at the Library of Congress, and Society for Ethnomusicology, among others.
Professionally, she serves as curator of the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, a unit of Tulane University Special Collections. As an adjunct professor, she teaches History of Urban Music at Loyola University New Orleans.
In her spare time, and under the moniker of Soul Sister, she has hosted her Soul Power show on WWOZ FM New Orleans community radio station for over 30 years as of 2024. As a performance DJ, she has shared stages with artists ranging from Questlove to George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic and was the first DJ to receive a prestigious Big Easy Entertainment Award. Her broadcast programs and live performances feature only the music she loves, from her personal collection of vinyl: 1970s and 1980s R&B, funk, disco, jazz, rare groove, rare groove, jazz fusion, true school hip hop and more.
Her record collection earned her a spot in the 2014 book Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting and the documentary Dig We Must, slated for summer 2025 release.
Her writing includes pieces for the Journal of Popular Music Studies, Wax Poetics, Red Bull Music Academy; Vinyl Me, Please; and an essay about Parliament-Funkadelic in the 2024 book How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History from NPR Music.
She first fell in love with Prince in 1980 with the 45 she owned of “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad” (and “Baby” on the B-side). She has thrown Prince-themed gatherings, including dance parties, film screenings, and talks, in New Orleans since 2013, and opened (as DJ Soul Sister) for The Revolution in 2018.
L*A*W
L.A.W.
The Family Roundtable
Most fans know L*A*W as the singer / rapper / dancer / producer & multi-instrumentalist In Funk Legend George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic and various offshoots of the legendary P-Funk camp but millions have seen him on national television back at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards & David Letterman in his white kangol glory singing & dancing behind the late legendary British sensation Amy Winehouse as well as being her opening act for her sold-out shows in New York City with his own fiery red-hot 7-piece musically diverse, notorious high energy band, The Planet 12 Movement Being the grandson of Long Island Music Hall Of Fame Inductee / Blues-Soul legend The Late Sam “Bluzman” Taylor & Coming from one of the most famous families in music history, this Brooklyn hood boy from the Crown Heights section has been known to make Hip-Hop (Underground & Commercial styles) work in his favor fusing Funk, Blues, Rock & Roll, R&B/Soul & elements while embracing Country, Pop, Jazz & even Techno exist under one roof while at the same time balancing the commercial element but still staying true to his underground roots. This has resulted in 3 Critically Acclaimed albums that turned into over 40 licensed songs to various networks VH-1, NBA, TV-1, Oxygen, Bravo, A&E, Lifetime & popular MTV shows like “The Real World: Brooklyn & Hollywood” In addition to the P-Funk camp, L*A*W’s musical reputation has firmly placed him among the elite in the Minneapolis camp of his #1 idol Prince thanks to his touring with Morris Day & The Time & more recently, the popular song “She Can Get It” which he not only wrote & produced but also features Minneapolis legends Jellybean Johnson, Monte Moir & Tony M Of The New Power Generation. L*A*W’s historic stint with Amy Winehouse can be captured in the Grammy & Oscar Award Winning Documentary “Amy” which has cemented L*A*W as one of the best & most sought after singer/dancers in the music industry. With a platinum roster of artists, he’s either opened up for or worked with like Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Marva King, Bruno Mars, Black Eyed Peas, Ne-Yo, Lionel Richie, Eric Burdon, Rick James, Chaka Khan, Harry Connick Jr, Fishbone, James Ingram, Jeffrey Osborne, Dionne Warwick & Deniece Williams, L*A*W continues to be an independent but major musical force that’s causing the industry to rewrite their terms and now with his hot buzzing Planet 12 Podcast on Instagram where he showcases his notorious extreme music knowledge & having convos with everyone from Vanessa Williams to Big Daddy Kane. There’s no stopping the Planet 12 Movement soon!
Krysta Battersby
Krysta Battersby
Community Manager
Krysta Battersby, Executive Director of the McNulty Scholars Program at Hunter College, is a Higher Education and Student Affairs professional who is passionate about helping scholars grow while developing and cultivating their skills and talents. After receiving her Master’s in Higher Education and Student Affairs from NYU, she was responsible for academic and student affairs for a department at NYU Tandon’s School of Engineering, while collaborating with other NYU offices and personnel to enhance the Tandon student experience. Her time at NYU Tandon helped her identify her interest in supporting students, especially women and students of color, towards achieving their academic and career goals within STEM. While providing student support services at Hunter College, she is also completing her doctorate at NYU Steinhardt, focusing on faculty support and mentorship for Black and Latina women in STEM.
She has been instrumental, behind the scenes, in ALL of De Angela’s symposia except for #Batdance30ATL at Spelman College.
Jason Orr
Jason Orr
The Family Roundtable
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.
Greg Howard
Greg Howard
The Family Presentations Moderator
Greg “King Rem” Howard is a musician, producer, emcee, film composer, and multi-instrumentalist from Cleveland, Ohio, currently residing in Brooklyn. He is the former Director of Special Projects at the Harvard University Hip-Hop Archives and Research Institute and a founding member of the hip-hop band Poetic Republic.
With nine films to date, he is becoming a highly sought composer for many indie film producers. Howard has also lent his talents to producing, mixing, mastering, and arranging songs and albums for various artists. His influences include artists and producers across various genres.
Chris Aguilar García
Chris Aguilar Garcia
ATWIAD #3 Presentations Moderator
Chris Aguilar García (he/they) is a Queer Chicanx writer and editor from Thornton, Colorado. Discovering Prince in 1982 via 1999, they were mesmerized by this male-presenting artist who so expertly defied conventional gender norms while incidentally producing, arranging, composing, and performing the baddest, sexiest, most funky work they had ever heard! Thus began a lifelong journey of following the music, art, and meaning of Prince.
They have presented work on the queerness of Prince at the Purple Reign and Prince from MPLS conferences, and at national and regional gatherings of the Popular Culture Association.
A graduate of Antioch University Los Angeles, they hold an extensive career in community minded organizations, currently as Director of Operations at Queer Asterisk Therapeutic Services.
C Liegh McInnis
C Liegh McInnis
ATWIAD #2 presentations Moderator
C. Liegh McInnis is a poet, short story writer, Prince scholar, retired instructor of English at Jackson State University, co-founder of the JSU Creative Writing Program, 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. 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, Callaloo, African American Review, Black Fire This Time Vols. 1 and 2, Tribes, The Southern Quarterly, Konch Magazine, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, 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, Oxford American, Journal of Popular Music and Society, Journal of Ethnic American Literature, and Red Ochre Lit. 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.