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"Using my beats to fight for my people's freedom."

OnRaé LaTeal, aka "The Liberation Music Maker", is an award-winning producer, experienced creative arts educator, and dynamic cultural organizer holding a B.A. from Howard University's School of Communications in Radio, Television and Film with a concentration in audio production. OnRaé has produced content for national and international commercial broadcast stations including Washington D.C.’s 96.3 WHUR-FM and Sirius XM Satellite Radio. She has worked alongside veteran radio personalities Frank Ski, Michel Wright, Tony Richards, Olivia Fox and John Wesley, while spending consecutive years leading DC's evening show chart as the executive producer of The Weekend Review with Bobby Gailes.

With over eight years of training as a classical instrumentalist, OnRaé made her official music debut in 2014 with OnRaé LaTeal Presents...Libra Season and later formed the hip-hop and soul collective, Aflocentric. The group released their debut album, Libra Season: Aflocentrism with the title track, "Infatuation" currently being aired on radio stations around the world.
 
As an experienced creative arts educator and public programs specialist, she supports local and national organizations’ efforts to produce racially inclusive and diverse programs through OnRaé LaTeal Productions (OLP), a multi-media production and special programs consulting agency. With OLP, OnRaé has also been able to develop thriving initiatives centered at the intersection of racial equity, education equity, digital art, and technology. 

Over the last four years, OnRaé has used OLP to expand her consultant work to include museum programming by creating opportunities for historically marginalized audiences to experience the magic of museums. In this realm, OnRaé has led the curation of immersive programs for the Arts and Industries Building's historic exhibition, FUTURES,  the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden's digital art studio for teens -- ARTLAB, and supported with the launch of the Smithsonian's Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past initiative.
Currently, she is supporting with program development for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures' groundbreaking exhibition, Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971. 

OnRaé is also the Co-Founder of the Black Girls Handgames Project (HGP), a grassroots program dedicated to using childhood handgames to uplift joy and resiliency for Black girls through music and education. The project revitalizes age old games such as Miss Mary Mack, Gigolo and Rockin' Robin with hip-hop and soulful remixes created by and featuring Black women and girls. OnRaé also uses the project to elevate gender equality in the field of music production by teaching teenage girls fundamental skills in beat-making. Since it's conception in 2017, HGP has curated special experiences for organizations including, National Crittenton Foundation, Washington Area Women's FoundationSmithsonian Folklife, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Gwen's Girls, Grantmakers for Girls of Color, DC Listening Lounge and more. 

Her most celebrated endeavor to merge the arts and social justice includes the Black Joy Experience, a compilation album of mainstream freedom songs and liberation chants she produced in conjunction with the national activist organization, Black Youth Project 100. Since the album's release in 2018, OnRae has continued to transform sounds from the movement into contemporary music prompting her alias as "The Liberation Music Maker". Her work was further propelled when she began integrating hip-hop music, liberation chants and live footage from DC protests following the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. OnRaé's multi-media work has taken the city by storm serving as the soundtrack of the revolution and on-going ground work of organizers in Washington, DC. 

Building from the recent momentum of her art activism, OnRaé has founded Freedom Futures Collective (FFC), an award-winning multi-media group of 20 artist activists using music, film, and education to support the movement for ALL Black lives. The collective was conceptualized while receiving a fellowship with one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world, Open Society Foundations (OSF). As an OSF fellow, OnRaé collaborated with FFC members to release a visual and musical album dedicated to highlighting campaigns in DC centering the reimagining of public safety. The album, "We Keep Us Safe" includes 23 original liberation music videos, and short immersive films highlighting the organizing work of DC-based activists groups and abolitionists. Since it's release at the end of 2020, the album has received multiple awards, including a 2022 Telly Award, and the Webby's Inaugural 2022 Anthem Award honoring social justice initiatives across the world. FFC is set to release their second visual album, Build Black Futures in Summer 2023, with the project being supported by Grant Makers for Girls of Color. 

You can find OnRaé's latest work on all music streaming platforms.  

 

Get free with me!

Black Girls Handgames Project 

handgamesproject@gmail.com

 

Freedom Futures Collective 
freedomfuturescollective@gmail.com

 

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