Naima Shalhoub: Naima Shalhoub is a Lebanese Arab-American vocalist, composer, performing artist, and educator based in the Bay Area. Her multidimensional work explores the borderlands of belonging, remembrance, freedom, and the expansive quality of the voice - its power for healing and energizing social justice movements. Her first full-length studio album, Siphr, was released on August 6th, 2020.
Her debut album, Live in San Francisco County Jail, was recorded alongside an audience of incarcerated women with whom she had been facilitating weekly Music and Freedom sessions for one year (many of whom participated in the performance). Produced in solidarity with movements to end the prison-industrial complex, the recording embodies Naima s deeply-held belief that it is an artist s duty to reflect the times (Nina Simone).