Luci Murphy (singer & community activist) has been performing for nearly 50 years and sings in 10 languages (English, Spanish, French, Kreyol, Portuguese, Nguni, Arabic, Hebrew, Cherokee, and ki-Swahili). She draws on the folklore of the world's cultures and employs their musical idioms, while never forgetting her roots in spirituals, blues, and jazz.

In a lifetime spent singing in support of civil rights, she has performed on behalf of the Wilmington 10; refugees from Palestine, Haiti, and Central America; Nicaraguan Sandinistas, Chilean anti-fascists; Texas farm workers; striking nurses; black union locals; shipyard workers in San Diego; unemployed workers; Washington, D.C., tenants; the homeless; the environment; and victims of police brutality.

Henry Mills (performance poet) is a performance poet and community organizer from the D.C. Metro area. He is the president and co-founder of Terpoets at the University of Maryland where he is currently a student in the Jimenez-Porter Writer’s House.

Christon "Christylez" Bacon (spoken word & music) is a native Washingtonian, more specifically, from the Southeast quadrant of the District of Columbia. Christylez has been furthering his many forms of artistic expression since the age of 13. As an emcee, he has featured at many venues in and outside of the DC arts scene including the National Youth Poetry Slam (San Francisco), Lincoln Theater, and the National Cathedral. Christylez is also the subject of the Rosebud Film Festival award winning documentary, Blue Line: Destination Christylez, in 2005.

As a musician, Christylez multi-tasks playing various instruments including the West-African Djembe drum, the guitar while simultaneously rhyming, and maintaining the syncopated oral percussions of the human beat-box. To see Christylez performing live is to see the unification of the world’s music incorporated with the elements of the Hip-Hop culture. Continuing the growth and development of his art, Christylez will perform at Strathmore during the month of March as part of Strathmore's Artist in Residence program.

Cherie Latson (singer, songwriter, poet, actress, visual artist) was born in Washington, DC in 1981. She has been performing since age nine. A multimedia artist, Cherie graduated from Duke Ellington School of the Arts from the Visual Arts department. She also attended Montgomery College, the Bard College Clemente Humanities Course and plans on continuing her education in music and teaching.

She has been a member of Sol & Soul, an arts and activist nonprofit organization. They started a youth writing/performance ensemble in 2000 called Spoken Resistance, which won the District of Columbia’s Mayor’s Art Award in 2002. She has won numerous poetry slams and most recently performed in the Hip Hop Theatre Festival at Studio Theatre with Sol & Soul, drawing a standing ovation.

Ms. Latson is one half of the Hip Hop duo, SitCalm, with her friend, Artemis Thompson. SitCalm appear in the new documentary about displacement in the District of Columbia, called Chocolate City.