ABBY DOBSON

ABBY DOBSON | she/her, a sonic con­ceptualist performing artist, composer, acti­vist, and scholar, is an artist in residence with the African American Policy Forum (AAPF). She has performed at the Apollo Theater, Blue Note Jazz Club, Hammer Museum, Kennedy Center, and on The Tonight Show. Featured on Talib Kweli’s album Gravitas (“State of Grace”), Dobson was nominated for a 2014 BET Hip Hop Award for Best Impact Song. She was a Create Change Fellow with the Laundromat Project and performed with Black women artists for Black Lives Matter. Dobson is also a member of the Resistance Revival Chorus, a women’s chorus, and Burnt Sugar, an im­prov­isational ensemble. Her song “Say Her Name,” inspired by AAPF’s campaign of the same name, is featured on The Resistance Revival’s This Joy album, released in 2020 on Righteous Babe Records. Passionate about using music as a tool for empathy cultiva­tion, Dobson creates music to inspire audi­ences to engage in action and promote transformative social change. Her essay “From Baldwin to Beyoncé: Exploring the Responsibility of the Artist in Society—Re-envisioning the Black Female Sonic Artist as Citizen” appears in African American Arts: Activism, Aesthetics, and Futurity, pub­lished in December 2019.