The American Library in Paris, Columbia Global Centers | Paris, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination are pleased to present Entre Nous. At the intersection of art and academia, France and the United States, the conversation series featuring academics, authors, journalists, filmmakers, and visual artists.
Join us for a conversation between Anto Neosoul and Robert O’Meally.
Speakers:
Anto Neosoul
Born in 1985 to a teacher (his mother) and a banker and theologian (his father), Neosoul is today one of Africa’s most popular soul musicians. He started to sing in primary school, and continued to perform in secondary school as well as at the University of Nairobi, where he studied broadcast journalism.
Anto’s debut album “Starborn” launched Neosoul onto first a local and then a worldwide stage; he has since toured in both Africa and Europe. His performances have been described as “high on melody, rhythm and harmonies.” Neosoul was nominated for the MTV African Music Awards in 2009. He was also nominated for two Kisima Awards for the Afro Fusion Song of the year and Best New Artist in 2012, as well as two Groove Awards for video of the year and song of the year in 2013.
Robert O’Meally
O’Meally is the Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he has served on the faculty for twenty-five years. The founder and director of Columbia’s Center for Jazz Studies, O’Meally is the author of The Craft of Ralph Ellison, Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday, The Jazz Singers, and Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey. His edited volumes include The Jazz Cadence of American Culture, Living With Music: Ralph Ellison’s Essays on Jazz, History and Memory in African American Culture, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (co-editor), among others. For his production of a Smithsonian record set called The Jazz Singers, he was nominated for a Grammy Award. His new books are The Romare Bearden Reader (edited for Duke University Press, 2019) and Antagonistic Cooperation: Collage, Jazz, and American Fiction (Columbia University Press, 2020).
