Baptiste’s next guest is the hip-hop recording artist, songwriter and poet Ibn Sharif Shakoor on Sunday May 16 at 2pm.
The Jersey City Theater Center will present the fourth installment of the new talk series, "Black Space," an ongoing series of intimate and candid conversations exploring the experiences of black artists in the world today, on Wednesday May 5 at 7:30pm. Series host Ashley Nicole Baptiste, JCTC's associate artistic director, shines the spotlight on the beloved jazz singer and educator "Ms. Mary" Aiken, a Jersey City living legend, in a candid conversation about growing up in Jersey City, her career as a local entertainer and also her commitment to serving as a role model for young people.
Baptiste's next guest is the hip-hop recording artist, songwriter and poet Ibn Sharif Shakoor on Sunday May 16 at 2pm. Shakoor, who is a JCTC resident artist, talks about growing up amid drugs and violence on the mean streets of Jersey City, and his path into music and songwriting to process, cope with and overcome adversity. The conversations take place on Facebook Live and on Zoom webinar. For details, visit www.jctcenter.org. The series first interview was with with Jersey City visual artist K. Brown, which took place on Wednesday March 31. A graduate of Ferris High School, Ms. Mary is not only a well-known longtime fixture on the stage of Moore's Lounge (where she performs regularly), but she is also a devoted teacher and role model having worked with local youth for over 50 years in countless schools, day cares, libraries, and churches. She was the style columnist for the Jersey City magazine From Dusk Til Dawn, she's taught modeling, puppetry, storytelling, sign language, acting and singing to students of every age. A keen-eyed witness to both the changes, durability and extraordinary diversity of Jersey City, Ms. Mary is a self-described "mom to all," whose motto is "you treat people how you want to be treated, and they will treat you well!"Videos