Soundscapes of Contemporary Harlem: Black Sound Geographies

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: This talk will be presented online using Zoom. Registration is required before 3:00 pm on Wednesday, 20 May 2026. Log in information for Zoom will be emailed to those who have registered with their registration confirmation.  The session will be recorded and posted to WAPA's YouTube channel within a few days of the event.

Title: Soundscapes of Contemporary Harlem: Black Sound Geographies

Abstract:  Soundscapes of Contemporary Harlem: Black Sound Geographies is a sonic invocation to further understand the music and embodied performance practices that already exist and are in constant creation within Harlem. This project is imbued with the storied musical authorship of Harlem as a topographic canvas of its present. Through this thesis project, I aim to metamorphosize theory into praxis as a means of truly reckoning with the musical infrastructures that already exist in Harlem and the ones that are being invented on a daily basis. By highlighting the intrinsic alternative mappings that are forged through community music practices, while contending with the violence of gentrification and its implicit deadliness, I explore the ways in which new maps are forged and creative worldbuilding is employed as a means of generating more equitable spaces for Black communities. Although gentrification seeks to quiet and minimize dissent and maps of dissension, my work is an attempt to transgress the boundaries cemented by white supremacy, expose its fictitious nature, and begin to motion towards a world outside of the material dimensionality of Westernized maps.

Speakers: Jasmine Kouyaté

For most of her professional life, Jasmine Kouyaté has worked for the Communications and the Performing Arts sectors as multidisciplinary venues for facilitating upliftment and worldbuilding within the African diaspora. With a B.A. in English from Swarthmore College and an M.A. in African American and African Diaspora Studies, Jasmine has worked for a range of organizations that have sought to bridge the polylithic experiences of the African diaspora through various modalities of art. From her work at Clemmons Family Farm, a Black owned arts non-profit organization to her work as a Gallery Guide at the California African American Museum, she has gained exposure to different forms of thought leadership and cultural perspectives that have sparked her interest in curating an arts community that integrates the voices all global Black communities, exploring music as a vital medium for community building and communal upliftment in the context of both historic colonialism and neo-colonialism.