ADMISSION:
Admission is free. RSVP beginning Wednesday, October 1, at 10 a.m.

DESCRIPTION:
Explore the USC Fisher Museum after hours and enjoy a dynamic evening filled with live performances, music, art activities, and more!

Programming will include:
> A conversation about storytelling, music, and resilience with Leila Steinberg, an educator, writer, poet, founder of AIM4TheHeART, and former manager of Tupac Shakur, and Diego Gaeta, a keyboardist and producer known for blending 1970s jazz, hip hop, global folk, and chamber music. Moderated by USC professor Brittany Friedman.

> Live music by Diego Gaeta, who gained notice for his dynamic and soulful playing in the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and contributed to André 3000’s New Blue Sun.

> Performances by USC Thornton School of Music students in the Special Topic Seminar taught by poet, musician, activist, and USC professor Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother).

> After-hours access to Ken Gonzales-Day: History’s “Nevermade”, a comprehensive survey of work by the artist, teacher, and scholar, whose oeuvre confronts the omissions and erasures in official narratives with a particular focus on race, place, memory, and gender identity in the United States and Europe. The exhibition will run from August 19, 2025, through March 14, 2026.

> Interactive art-making activities and refreshments.

Bios:

Camae Ayewa is a national and international touring musician, composer, poet, visual artist, curator, professor of composition at USC Thornton School of Music, and cofounder of Black Quantum Futurism theory and practice. Her work uses Afrofuturism as a narrative tool, recognizing its ability to empower marginalized Black and Indigenous people, and acting as an agitator in shaping Afrodiasporan past and future narratives. As a solo artist, Ayewa lives outside of genre, with experience with fringe and avant-garde sonic landscapes such as industrial, electronic, noise, punk, and hip hop. Ayewa has released three solo albums as Moor Mother: the critically acclaimed Fetish Bones (2016), Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes (2019), and the free jazz musical Circuit City (2020). She is a Pew fellow, Knight Foundation Art and Technology fellow, A Blade of Grass fellow, Foundation for Contemporary Arts fellow, Leeway Transformation Award winner, Moog Sound Lab resident, and Wysing Arts Centre resident whose work has been exhibited internationally.

Brittany Friedman is recognized as an innovative thinker on how people and institutions hide harmful truths. Friedman is a writer, poet, and documentarian. She is the author of the new book Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons. Friedman has written for outlets such as TIME Magazine, The Washington Post, and The Conversation, and is an assistant professor of sociology at USC, co-founder of the Captive Money Lab, and affiliated scholar of the American Bar Foundation.

Diego Gaeta is an accomplished young musician in the flourishing L.A. scene with a fervent following around the world. Gaeta integrates the futurism of 1970s jazz fusion with hip hop, global folk music, chamber music, and multiple strains of modern expression. His dynamic and soulful playing gained notice in his work with the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (founded by the iconic pianist Horace Tapscott), the trio Human Error Club, Aaron and Lawrence Shaw’s Black Nile project, the adventurous percussionist Carlos Niño, and fellow SoCal keyboard/producer Moki Kawaguchi, better known as Lionmilk. He recently released his debut album, Fearlessly Accessing The Divine Spirit Of Freedom From Here On Out. Other releases include In Float with Lionmilk, Una Luz Naranja with Carlos Niño, and This Could Be Our Every Day, which was self-released. He also recently appeared on two tracks on Andre 3000’s New Blue Sun. He was recently featured on NTS and Dublab for his single “Earthseed,” part of Leaving Records’ fire-relief compilation Staying.

Leila Steinberg is an American manager, businesswoman, educator, writer, poet, and founder of AIM4TheHeART, a nonprofit dedicated to helping at-risk youth find their voice using an emotional-literacy curriculum and writing workshops. She is best known as the artist mentor and first manager of rapper Tupac Shakur. They met when he was a student in her writing workshop, The Microphone Sessions, in Oakland. Today, Steinberg manages the rapper Earl Sweatshirt, formerly of Odd Future.

Presented by USC Visions and Voices. Organized by the USC Fisher Museum of Art. Co-sponsored by the Center for Black Cultural and Student Affairs, USC Dornsife Department of Sociology, and USC Thornton Composition Program.

Image: Ken Gonzales-Day, Untitled #36 (Ramoncita at the Cantina), 1996