The Sound Mind Collective

In 2017, Odie Powell, Chris St. Hilaire, and I co-founded The Sound Mind Collective, a democratically-run group of independent music makers in NYC. Our mission was to collaborate internally and with other organizations to find ways strengthen our local communities. From its inception in 2017 to its end in 2022, SMC took on a number of projects, such as hosting several skill building workshops for our music community, producing concerts to benefit local organizations we admired, and contributing our voices to influence local government policies that affect musicians. In 2019, the collective was given a residency at Human Impacts Institute in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The following year, SMC turned its focus to raising funds for musicians and venues affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and created spaces for dialogue and healing within the community.