Saturday Mornings with Joy Keys

Special guest: Julie Cevallos, VP of Marketing for the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS). She is the new Vice President of Marketing, most recently from Brooks Brothers. Her background is in all aspects of marketing, including direct mail, social media, and online marketing. Julie is a parent of a 2-year old daughter, Nina, who has Down syndrome, and also has 6-year old son, Alec. Click here to read her story about Nina as featured in the NDSS My Great Story campaign. Special Guest: Dr. Brian Skotko, Medical Advisor to the NDSS. He is a clinical fellow in genetics at Children's Hospital Boston, Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham & Women's Hospital, and Dana Farber Cancer Institute. He is a graduate of Duke University, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Kennedy School, He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The L.A. Times, NPR’s "On Point," and ABC’s "Good Morning America." , www.brianskotko.com The mission of the National Down Syndrome Society is to be the national advocate for the value, acceptance and inclusion of people with Down syndrome. http://www.NDSS.org

Born in the Pinar del Río province of Western Cuba, Steinway Artist pianist and composer Elio Villafranca was classically trained in percussion and composition at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. Since his arrival in the U.S. in late 1995, he has been involved in jazz and Latin jazz scenes on both the East and West Coasts. Based in New York City, he is resident professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. In the 2010 Grammy Awards he was nominated in Best Latin Jazz Album of the Year, for his performance, composition and coproduction in the album ThingsI Wanted To Do by Chembo Corniel. Villafranca was also pianist in the CD La Guerra No by John Santos Y El Coro Folklorico Kindembo, which was nominated in the 2010 Grammy Awards as Best Traditional World Music Album. As a bandleader, he has released three albums, 2 CDs and one Vinyl. His most recent recording and first LP with title “Dynamic Resolution, was released February 26th, 2011. The Source in Between, 2007, remained in the top 10 of the JazzWeek World Top 50 Chart for eleven weeks, and his first album, Incantations/Encantaciones, was ranked amongst the 50 best jazz albums of the year by JazzTimes magazine in 2003. This year, Villafranca is releasing a new recording called Dos y Mas. This album is a duo collaboration with master percussionist from Cuba Arturo Stable. AND In October, Villafranca will return to the studio to record his new quintet The Jass Syncopators, after it premier presentation at Dizzy’s Jazz Club Coca Cola, Jazz at Lincoln Center. website: www.eliovillafranca.com

Ledisi Young (her given name meaning "to bring forth" in Nigerian) was born in the Big Easy, where she sang with the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra when she was eight years old and spent many adolescent hours watching her mother perform with a local R&B band, often in a nearby park. After the family relocated to Oakland, CA, Ledisi followed her mother's lead and sang in a local band, but left to form her own group and identity. She became widely noted for her performances in Beach Blanket Babylon, a long-running San Francisco-based cabaret featuring song parodies, celebrity impersonations, and enormous hats; she got the gig after being nominated for a Shellie Award in 1990 for her role as Dorothy in a local version of The Wiz. She later formed Anibade (Ledisi's middle name), which depending on what you read means "to bring forth luck" or "my mother is great" in Yoruba. In 2000, Ledisi released her first album, entitled Soulsinger: The Revival. Ledisi and her group toured in 2001, performing various shows. In 2002, Ledisi released her second album, Feeling Orange but Sometimes Blue. The album won her an award for "Outstanding Jazz Album" at the California Music Awards. In 2007, Ledisi signed a major record deal with Verve Forecast and released her third album in August of that year, entitled Lost & Found, which sold almost 217,000 copies and earned her two Grammy nominations, including one for Best New Artist. In 2008, Ledisi released her Christmas album, It's Christmas. In 2009, Ledisi released her fourth album Turn Me Loose, which earned her 2 Grammy nominations. Her latest album is ‘Pieces of Me’. Check out www.ledisi.com

Spalding’s journey as a solo artist began with the May 2008 release of Esperanza, which went on to become the best selling album by a new jazz artist internationally in 2008 and was also critically acclaimed. During 2009, Esperanza toured extensively in the USA and Europe, was booked for a number of talk shows and the year was capped by an invitation from President Obama to perform at both the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Oslo, Norway and also at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert. If Esperanza marked a brilliant beginning for this gifted young artist, then Spalding’s latest release, Chamber Music Society, sets her on an upward trajectory to prominence. Inspired by the classical training of her younger years, Spalding has created a modern chamber music group that combines the spontaneity and intrigue of improvisation with sweet and angular string trio arrangements. The result is a sound that weaves the innovative elements of jazz, folk and world music into the enduring foundations of classical chamber music traditions. On Februrary 13th 2011 in Los Angeles, Esperanza received one of the music industry’s most prestigious prizes, the Grammy for Best New Artist.  After her Spring European tour, Esperanza will return to the studio where she will continue recording her next album, Radio Music Society.  www.esperanzaspalding.com Little Fly music video:http://youtu.be/w2JRGv91urY?t=10s

Special Guest: Tracye Lynn McQuirter, MPH, is a speaker, author, and 20-year vegan who helps people achieve extraordinary health through better food choices. She directed the nation’s first federally funded began nutrition program and worked on legislation to improve federal nutrition guidelines. McQuirter has been featured in the Washington Post, Ebony and Essence and has been a guest on NPR, Fox 5 (Washington, D.C.) and NBC 4 (Washington, D.C.), among many others. She was a contributing writer for Heart & Soul magazine and a nutrition consultant for the Black Women’s Health Imperative. McQuirter is a graduate of Amherst College and New York University, where she received her master’s of public health nutrition. By Any Greens Necessary: A Revolutionary Guide for Black Women Who Want to Eat Great, Get Healthy, Lose Weight, and Look Phat , is an inspirational and honest guide that will change women’s perspectives on their food, bodies and lives. http://www.byanygreensnecessary.com Special Guest: Len Torine, Executive Director of the American Vegetarian Association.Len created, and was consultant to many natural foods restaurants in the New York metro area, including: 'Veggies', 'The Celery Bunch', and 'The Slimmery'. His book, "Light Cuisine" sold almost 1 million copies.Len went on to open his own franchised chain of health-conscious restaurants, The Diet Gourmet Shoppes. The concept was featured on CNN and  the Regis Philbin Show. Len was chosen to be a participating member of Project Lean, funded by the Kaiser Foundation. In 1994 Len co-founded VeggieLand, a strictly vegetarian manufacturer in Parsippany, N.J. http://www.amerveg.org/index.html

Special guest: Ghanaian German Singer Jennifer Yaa Akoto chatting about her new album 'Baby Blues'. Her debut album, ‘Babyblues’ is a splendid collection of songs full of meaning and depth which Y’akoto wrote herself in the course of the past two years in close collaboration with Mocky, Haze and the Kahedi production team (Max Herre, Samon Kawamura and Roberto Di Gioia).“A number of songs on the album such as ‘Good Better Best’ or ‘Moving’ have a very strong Afro feel to them, but for me, they are, above all, folk music, because I want to address people at a very personal level. The songs deal primarily with real life, with the things that happen to each and every one of us every day of our lives; stories that everyone has experienced and can empathize with.”   With her songs, Y’akoto follows in the footsteps of such luminaries as Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Erykah Badu as she manages effortlessly to encapsulate grandly intense feeling in exquisite narrative vignettes, moving miniatures in which the concerns of a single individual become the concerns of many. And yet, Y’akoto is simply on a hegira of soul-searching.       Website: http://www.yakoto.de   FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/yakototruth   TAMBA video: http://youtu.be/CHgMKpaWG_E

ROBERT X. GOLPHIN  Often referred to as "The Renaissance Man", Robert X. Golphin has not even scratched the surface of his potential.  Robert holds a B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) in Theater and Film.. He is an award-nominated actor best known for his role as "Dunbar Reed" in Denzel Washington's "The Great Debaters" and as "Son" in the multiple award-winning "Punch Me".  As an over 21 time award-winning or nominated filmmaker/screenwriter, Robert has brought many projects to the screen including most recently, the award-winning short subjects, "Punch Me", "Inside of Me", "Un-Perfect" and "Beautiful Man In The Buff", just to name a few.  Robert launched his own production company, Brotherside Entertainment, LLC in 2010. He will sneak preview his latest directorial effort, "I AM MAN" on the internet for one day only in late September. He is also the author of the novel, "Abandoning Adam: Confessions of an HBCU Scholar", available through thousands of retailers nationwide.  Website:www.RobertXGolphin.Com  TBD

Leila Lopes, 25 years old, was born to Cape Verdean immigrants in Angola's central Benguela province. Before being crowned Miss Universe 2011, Lopes attended school for business management in Great Britain. In her country’s national beauty pageant, Miss Angola, Lopes obtained the Photogenic Award as well as winner of the title, gaining the right to represent Angola in the 2011 Miss Universe pageant. In her new role, Lopes’s main focus is helping her native Angola further escape a history of war and impoverishment and combating HIV around the globe.

Born in Normandy, France, to a Parisian father and French Guyanese Creole mother, Yonnet lived in and around Paris most of his life. As a child, he and his dad performed comedy in theaters throughout France. After a short stint as a drummer, Yonnet revisited an instrument he’d received as a child: the harmonica. His impressive style has led to performances, tours and recordings with some of the heaviest hitters in the business including the legendary Stevie Wonder, music icon Prince, award-winning songwriter David Foster, game-changing instrumentalist Kenny G, American Idol’s Randy Jackson, and R&B artists Erykah Badu, the Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber, Indie.Arie, and John Legend. Rolling Stone magazine referred to Yonnet as “Prince’s killer harmonica player” and praise from comedian Dave Chappelle, contemporary jazzman Bob James, songstress Patti Austin and producer Pharrell Williams have affirmed his mission to change the way the music industry, musicians and enthusiasts regard the pocketsize reed instrument. These days, the U.S.-based Yonnet travels with pedal boards, mixers, amps, microphones and more than 50 diatonic harmonicas. “I’m pretty intense on the harmonica and I like to have the ‘sharpest ax’ at all times.” And he’s not afraid to wield it. There aren’t many musicians who would go tête-à-tête with Stevie Wonder on the harmonica, but Yonnet has proved himself more than capable.

Special Guest: Award-winning personality, Sharon K. McGhee, born in St. Louis, is the news director for WVON Radio. McGhee decided to explore the topics of sexuality and responsibility in our community so she authored, The PocketBook Monologues. The term ‘pocketbook’ was used by many older African-American women when they described the triangle that separates their thighs. The Pocketbook Monologues, featured talented actresses: Kim Coles, Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, Essence Atkins and Ella Joyce, just to name a few. Sharon K. McGheehas battled ovarian cancer for nearly three years and has decided to turn her life-changing diagnosis into an educational stage production about universal themes that cancer patients face: chemo, radiation, depression, addiction to prescription drugs, body image, new intimacy, and putting God first. A funny thing happened on the way to chemo and through humor, McGhee shares her journey with ovarian cancer and the journey of other cancer patients in her new venture, The Cancer Monologues. SPECIAL GUEST:  Dr. Matthew Powell, a member of the Foundation for Women's Cancer Board of Directors and a gynecologic oncologist at Washington University, will be on the podcast. Check out their  National Race to End Women’s Cancer to be held in Washington, DC on November 6, 2011.  For more information about the race and registration go to. foundationforwomenscancer.org.    

SPECIAL GUEST: Author Sophia Nelson, Black Women Redefined, http://www.blackwomanredefined.com/book.html SPECIAL GUEST: Salamishah Tillet, A Long Walk Home organization.http://www.alongwalkhome.org/ SPECIAL GUEST: Sherrell Dixson, youth leader for Start Strong Los Angeles chapter .http://st.startstrongteens.org/communities/los-angeles SPECIAL GUEST:Josephine Bradley, P.D.,Clark Atlanta University. http://www.cau.edu/Academics_Faculty_AAS.aspx   ------------------------- Where are young black women? School? Jail? Pregnant? Careers? Relationships? How is their health?HIV, Diabetes, Obesity, Depression What are their dreams?

SPECIAL GUESTS: Thabiti Lewis, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English at Washington State University Vancouver Andraé Brown, Ph.D., Assistant professor at Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling Chad Dion Lassiter, MSW, President of the Black Men at Penn, will be on the podcast. Derrick Darby, Ph.D., Dept of Philosophy at University of Kansas. -------------------------------- Where are the Young Black Men? Jail? College? Employed or unemployed? What are their concerns? How is their Health? Their intimate relationships? Their Finances? Where are the Young Black Men?

Lawrence Hill's third novel was published as The Book of Negroes in Canada and the UK, and as Someone Knows My Name in the USA, Australiaand New Zealand. It won the overall Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the Ontario Library Association's Evergreen Award and CBC Radio's Canada Reads. The book was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright LEGACY Award and longlisted for both the Giller Prize and the IMPAC Award. Hill is also the author of the novels Any Known Blood (William Morrow, New York, 1999 and HarperCollins Canada, 1997) and Some Great Thing (HarperCollins 2009, originally published by Turnstone Press, Winnipeg, 1992). Hill's most recently published fiction is the short story 'Meet You at the Door', which appeared in the January-February, 2011 issue of The Walrus magazine.   Hill's most recent non-fiction book The Deserter's Tale: the Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq (written with Joshua Key) was released in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and several European countries.   In 2010, Hill received honorary doctorates from the University of Toronto and Wilfrid Laurier University, the Bob Edwards Award from the Alberta Theatre Projects, and was named Author of the Year by Go On Girl, the largest African-American women's book club in the United States.  

Oum EL Ghait is the first name that Morocco's Saharian nomads would want to give to girls born on a rainy day, thinking it's the luck of the new born that brings with it the water, the relief, or deliverance; where the meaning of the name, which literally means "Mother of relief " OUM, was born in Casablanca, the economic capital of Morocco, and grew up in the city of Marrakech. She takes her name from her paternal grandmother: Lalla Oum el Ghait Bent Bella. OUM is an eclectic feminine vocalist who dare to play soul music mixed with her natural influences, as the Hassany poetry (culture of the Moroccan desert) and african rythmes that she consideres as the roots of soul, gospel and jazz music. Malouma Mint El Maidah, Ella Fitzgerald, Miriam Makeba, Billie Holliday, Dimi Mint Abba, Aretha Franklin and Eryka Badu are her vocalists of reference. Her first album LIK'OUM was presented in Casablanca in May 2009. She's considered one of the vocalists with most future on the feminin Moroccan scene. Since september 2010 she started working on her second album "SWEERTY". "WHOWA" first single of this second opus was released with a video clip in January 2010. A second single HARGUIN is released in july 2011, in collaboration with ghanéan-american artist BLITZ the AMBASSADOR, talking about illegal immigration in Africa. The new album SWEERTY is coming up in September 2011.   WEBSITE: www.oum.ma

Forbes Magazine, the largest and most influential business publication  in the world has named  soleRebels founder Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu to its recently published  list  20 Youngest Power Women In Africa List . Tilahun Alemu was recently named the ‘African Businesswoman of the Year’ by African Business Magazine, a leading pan African business magazine. She is the founder of soleRebels the footwear brand recently hailed as  “the Nike of Africa”  and Africa’s fastest growing footwear brand.    She was also named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum earlier this year.   CNN profiled soleRebels and its founder Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu in a 30 minute special  titled Ethiopian footwear fashionista starts a green shoe revolution !   And soleRebels was featured on BBC Worldwide until mid 2011 in An African Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby.   In May 2011 Bethlehem was invited by the World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala  to address  the World Bank/UN LDC trade enhancement policy formulation sessions in Istanbul,  marking the first time an African woman entrepreneur was invited to assist in  formulating global trade policy in this global forum.   website: www.solerebelsfootwear.co