Camille Yarbrough

Camille Yarbrough was recently profiled in Vibe (online) and hailed as progenitor of the hip hop phenomenon. She is an award-winning performance artist, author, and cultural activist. With a career that spans over fifty years, several continents, countless awards and accolades, and a few generations, Nana Camille has earned legendary status. In November 2012, she received a Legacy Award from the Institute of the Black World 21st Century at their “State of the Black World” Conference III in Washington, D.C. She continues to inspire audiences today through her local, long running television show, Ancestor House, her popular musical CD (also entitled Ancestor House), and via performances and lectures on  poetry, music, Black art and culture.

Nana Camille (as she is honorably called) performed at the Poetry Jam of the 2011 Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit in Florida. She is regularly called upon to share her wisdom and life/work, be it Kwanzaa celebrations and Haiti tributes in New York, concerts in California for Maulana Karenga (founder of Kwanzaa), or on the Michael Eric Dyson Radio Show. Regardless of the medium, Nana Camille’s life-long vision remains clear. She consistently champions the beauty and greatness of African people wherever they are in the world. Her mission is to raise their glory and in so doing vibrate that thread of humanity that links all.

In contemporary pop culture circles, Nana Camille is known as the singer whose song and vocals were sampled on the international mega-hit, “Praise You,” by techno-musician Fatboy Slim. Her first solo musical recording, The Iron Pot Cooker (1975) is where the hit song Praise You originated.

Nana Camille is also an educator. After 12 years as a faculty member at City College of New York, she now presents at colleges across the country, from Howard University to the University of Wisconsin. Ms. Yarbrough performs with her band, Ancestor House, which includes keyboards, drums and bass.

SELECT LECTURE TOPICS
Cornrows: A Deep-Rooted Conversation about African and African American Hair
Let’s Get It On: The Queen Mother and the Ghetto Queen
Black Dance in America (based on Yarbrough’s Black Collegian article “The Old Seed”)
The Language of Body Adornment (based on Yarbrough’s article “Black Women in Antiquity”)
Tell It: The Role and Responsibility of the African American Artist
Family Forever – A Journey into 500 Years of Tradition