Meet the Black Arts District Team

Lady Brion

Executive Director

Lady Brion is an international spoken word artist, poetry coach, activist, organizer, educator and the executive director of the Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts and Entertainment District. She received her B.A. in Applied Communication from Howard University and her MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Design from the University of Baltimore. During her slam career she has won the 2016 National Poetry Slam, the 2017/2019 Southern Fried Regional Slam, and the 2019 Rustbelt Regional Slam. She was most recently ranked 3rd in the Women of the World Poetry Slam in March 2020. In 2018, she published a book and accompanying album called With My Head Unbowed. Lady Brion also serves on the board for DewMore Baltimore and as the Cultural Curator for a grassroots political think-tank called Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle in Baltimore.

Kenneth

Program Director

Kenneth is an artist, organizer and educator from Baltimore, Maryland. For over a decade, Kenneth has worked to create art and institutions that connect and transform people. Most recently, his work centers around marginalized people gaining access to their intellectual, emotional, spiritual and creative traditions. Kenneth has many accomplishments including but not limited to: having his art on display at Baltimore Museum of Art, publishing two collections of poetry, confounding DewMore Baltimore and Baltimore Youth Initiative High School, becoming a national poetry slam champion and being a professor at MICA. Kenneth has had the opportunity to teach, work and live many places around the country but Baltimore is his favorite place to create and build.

Maya Wright

Administrative Assistant

Maya is a poet out of Pittsburgh who has recently relocated to Baltimore to expand her professional and artist career. She majored in Behavioral Science at Point Park University and is now the Administrative Assistant at Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts and Entertainment District. Maya began slamming the summer of 2020, and in April of 2021 became one of the top five women poets in the world. She is currently working on the release of her first poetry book. 

Angela N. Carroll

Lead Curator, Historical Photography Project

Angela N. Carroll is an artist-archivist, writer, curator, and investigator of art history and culture. She regularly contributes critical essays to significant publications including Sugarcane Magazine, Black Art in America, BmoreArt, and Hyperallergic, and also writes art exhibition catalogs for prominent institutions including Columbia University, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Rena Bransten Gallery, and The National Museum of Women in the Arts, among others. In 2021, Angela released Exploring Presence: African American Artists in the Upper South, a catalog and short docuseries that surveys under-recognized artists in the DMV region. In Spring 2022, the Exploring Presence: African American Artists in the Upper South exhibition will premiere at the James E Lewis Museum of Art at Morgan State University. She received her MFA in Digital Arts and New Media from the University of California at Santa Cruz and intermittently teaches within the Film and Moving Image program at Stevenson University and the FYE program at MICA in Baltimore, Maryland.

Nathaniel Thomas

Graphic Artist

Nate Thomas is a visual and hip-hop artist from Detroit, MI. An academically trained Illustrator, BFA Illustration (2015), music wasn’t always on the radar as a career path. Throughout his time at College for Creative Studies some of his trials and tribulations led him to music. Originally a therapeutic outlet; it wouldn’t be long before he would begin to take honing the craft and learning the ins and outs seriously. Nate had been working on his craft since 2011 and officially became “Nate Variety” summer 2014. It would take some years of dedication before he released what he considered his first true body of work “C O L O R” in 2018. Nate currently resides in Baltimore where he works for Under Armour and the Black Arts District as a graphic designer.

Cydni Stewart

Outreach Coordinator

Cydni “Beanpie” Stewart is a creative with entrepreneurial and artistic talents. Most of her time is spent building programs and cultivating ideas to spread art, therapy, and connection throughout her communities. With a background in administration and a passion for the arts, Beanpie has made her mark on the Baltimore scene by assisting and fertilizing entities that fit her vision of a better, healthier, creative Baltimore community.

Ma’issa Wright-Kerr

Marketing and Communications Coordinator

Ma’issa Soul Wright-Kerr is a national slam poet, fiction writer, and multi-disciplinary artist. She is a proud Howard University graduate, having received her B.A. in Strategic, Legal, and Management Communications with a concentration in Public Relations in 2020. She is currently studying creative writing for children and young adults and working on her debut book. She was a member of the DC Youth Slam Team, representing DC in the 2018 Brave New Voices International Poetry Festival. She has worked in youth leader positions in prominent arts organizations such as The Baltimore Scene, DewMore Baltimore and Split This Rock. She is passionate about the power of communication, especially through poetry and other writing. Through her poetry, Ma’issa hopes to be able to push others towards their most honest self-expression.