DC-based Liberated Muse Productions to host Haiti benefit

Khadijah Ali Coleman (Photo: Khadijah Ali Coleman)

Liberated Muse Productions will host the To Haiti, With Love relief benefit concert on Friday, February 12 from 7:00 PM-10:00 PM at the Potter's House in Adams Morgan. Three weeks ago, a catastrophic earthquake rocked Haiti, leaving hundreds of thousands dead and over a million people homeless.

Liberated Muse Productions, whose tag line is "transforming places into art spaces," is the brainchild of Khadijah Ali Coleman, who does double duty as both the DC Community Examiner and the DC Hip-Hop Music Examiner. Liberated Muse Productions also has a strong online presence at LiberatedMuse.com, created in 2008, says Ali Coleman, to “be a safe space for flourishing artists and those who were just setting their sight on becoming an expressive being. I wholeheartedly believe that everyone is creative, but I believe that we all have different stages and mediums in which our creativity manifests. I wanted LiberatedMuse.com to be a place where literary artists, visual artists, performers, fiber artists—any type of artist—could log on and fellowship with someone who could encourage them, meet them, engage with them and share with them.” 

Liberated Muse Volume I (Photo: Khadijah Ali Coleman) 

Ali Coleman is also the author in her own right. She edited the anthology Liberated Muse Volume I: How I Freed My Soul and wrote and produced the play Shades of Black: a Thought in Progress. As a journalist, one of Ali Coleman’s beats is the local music scene. “I cover only news relevant to hip-hop and the District of Columbia,” she says. “I focus on hip-hop that is out-of-the-box or at least appealing to a broad range of listeners.”

Ali Coleman and her partner Maceo Thomas marshal DC-area talent and produce events locally under the Liberated Muse umbrella, like the successful Capital Hip Hop Soul Fest, held annually in Washington DC’s Marvin Gaye Park. Now, Coleman and Thomas bring their skills to the To Haiti, With Love benefit, which will showcase DC-based musical acts. Liberated Muse plans to donate proceeds from the event to Yele HAITI, the organization founded by musician Wyclef Jean. Why Yele? According to the LiberatedMuse.com website, “Currently, Yele, is on the ground in Haiti, providing ground-level assistance to the survivors of last Tuesday's deadly earthquake. ALL proceeds will be donated to help them continue this work.”

Coleman and musician Raphael Saadiq (Photo: Khadijah Ali Coleman)

It is in this way that Coleman and company choose to contribute to help Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, begin to heal.