I Live Love...Toni Blackman

Morning Prayer: Let my life be a blessing to someone else's life. Use me as a vessel. I release all fear, all worry, all resistance to manifesting my destiny & becoming my best self. I embrace my personal power. I live love, I am love, I love courageously & generously. And so it is.

--Toni Blackman, Artist, Cultural Ambassador, Founder of Rhyme like a Girl & Freestyle Union, and A Dove® Real Woman Role Model

http://www.toniblackman.com

Every other Tuesday, WOMEN AT LIBERTY provides a platform for a variety of voices and resources to develop, encourage, and strengthen women leaders. This week, Leadership Tuesdays presents Toni L. Blackman, a poet, rap artist, and self-described "international champion of hip hop culture." Her commitment to use her craft to create cultural change led the United States Department of State to select her as an American Cultural Specialist. Ms. Blackman travelled around the world lecturing, conducting workshops and performing works that challenged and condemned violence against women and promoted self esteem among women and girls.

Blackman founded the Freestyle Union, a New York-based organization for hip hop artists and rappers that uses free-style rapping to promote social responsibility. As an artist, she has shared the stage with Erykah Badu, Mos Def, The Roots, Wu Tang Clan, GURU, Bahamadia, Boot Camp Clic, Me’Shell NdegeoCello, Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, Jill Sobule and Rickie Lee Jones.

As a scholar and educator, Toni developed and lauched a program called, "I Rhyme Like A Girl" to build self esteem and empower young girls by using creative tools such as poetry, lyrics and performance. Further, this Echoing Green and Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) Fellow has done an extensive amount of work with the Girl Scouts of America and was instrumental in launching “The Girls Hip Hop Project” at the Center for Cultural Exchange in Portland, Maine (a program that provides workshops for teen girls from the Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and many other places). Her latest efforts are as a teaching artist at Brooklyn Communication Arts & Media High School (BCAM) where she teaches “The Art of Emceeing”.

In 2012, Toni was selected as a Dove® role model. With a goal of promoting self esteem and inspiring women and girls to reach their full potential, Dove® is highlighting real women role models who "should be famous". To see her powerful and inspiring story, click here. For more information on Leadership Tuesdays, see here.