Somi Kakoma
Somi Kakoma is the daughter of immigrants from Uganda and Rwanda. Known in the jazz world simply as Somi, her nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album made her the first African woman ever nominated in any of the Grammy’s jazz categories. A recipient of two NAACP Image Awards for Best Vocal Jazz Album, the Doris Duke Artist Award, and the inaugural Jazz Music Award for Best Vocal Performance, Somi is also a Soros Equality Fellow and United States Artist Fellow. Last season, she wrote and starred in the Off-Broadway production of Dreaming Zenzile - an original musical based on the life of Miriam Makeba. Somi's performance was nominated for Drama League, Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, and AUDELCO Awards. She holds degrees in Cultural Anthropology and African Studies from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master’s in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, and is currently working on a PhD at Harvard University.
(Somi Kakoma (Photo courtesy of Boneau/Bryan-Brown))
