The Museum will return our signature NMAAHC Live concert program to celebrate our new exhibition, Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures. The Museum will feature New Orleans musician, multimedia artist, animator, and entrepreneur, Dawn Richard. Richard will discuss her expansive artistic career and creative influences with Angela Tate, Women’s History Curator; following this brief discussion, Richard will perform her futuristic, genre-straddling take on Pop music live.
 
As a founding member of Danity Kane and later with Diddy’s Dirty Money, Richard has explored the ins and outs of commercial pop music. As a solo artist, she opted to self-release her music; throughout six critically acclaimed full-length albums, she treats Louisiana Creole culture, New Orleans bounce, and Southern Swag as elemental, allowing her to weave in and out of house, footwork, R&B, and more. Her most recent album, Pigments, a collaboration with multi-instrumentalist and producer Spencer Zahn, is an orchestral fusion of neoclassical, ambient, and jazz that has received extensive critical acclaim since its release in October 2022.
 
In addition to her prolific musical output, Richard is active in several other creative fields. She works in creative direction and creator partnerships with Adult Swim and is enthusiastic about emerging technologies and the intersection of tech and art. This past October, she was the Artist in Residence at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, marking the first time the Institute has hosted a visiting artist for a week of programming.