Jahmi Roc (Racquel Bernard)
Sara Aiken
Dr. Truth Akins, Ed.D
DJ Papalotl aka Buttahfly (Diana Camacho)
Queen Theresa King
Dale Virgo
Jahmi Roc (Racquel Bernard) is a Kingston-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter, scholar, and self-described freedom singer whose music brings reggae, dancehall, R&B, gospel, and hip hop into songs of healing, liberation, and social clarity. She holds a doctorate in musicology from UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music, where her work examines how Black women’s reggae functions as freedom singing and resistance. That same lens shapes an artistic practice that uplifts, names injustice, and insists on spiritual dignity. On Love Like Liberation, her debut EP, Jahmi Roc expands that mission into a reggae-centered song cycle that treats love as a liberating force rather than a limit. Across the project, she connects self-love, romantic intimacy, spiritual protection, and communal care as related forms of resistance, making room for tenderness, testimony, pleasure, and truth-telling. Her artistry first crystallized with the 2021 single “I Am”, a poem-to-song breakthrough that affirmed her instinct to merge scholarship, poetry, and performance. Her honors include Dartmouth honors, UWI Mona distinction, UCLA’s Dissertation Year Award, the Herb Alpert School of Music Dean’s Medal, and Dartmouth’s Paul Robeson Award for Performing Arts and Scholarship. Jahmi Roc continues to build a roots-conscious, genre-blurring catalog that heals, challenges, and liberates. JahmiRoc.com
Sara Aiken is a Los Angeles–based reggae vocalist and harmony specialist whose professional career began with Ladee Dred (rest in peace) & the Queens of Jah, where she contributed powerful chest‑voice soprano lines despite being a natural alto. Rooted in a lifelong practice of church singing and secondary‑school choral training, she approaches background vocals as a site of spiritual uplift, centering rich harmonies that audiences frequently describe as soul‑touching and transformative. Drawing on deep experience in Southern California’s reggae community as both longtime dancer and now performer, Aiken uses her work to amplify Black feminist presence, celebrate full-bodied Black womanhood, and promote mental and emotional well‑being through spiritually grounded, live reggae performance.
Dr. Truth Akins, Ed.D, a first-generation higher education teacher in her family, faced challenges of domestic violence, and joined the US Navy in 1996 and moved to California, as a single parent with 3 children. Earned an associate’s degree at Grossmont Community College in San Diego, in 2004, with wonderful memories of running cross country and track, after transferring to a 4-year college, San Diego State University, and earned a degree in Criminal Justice Administration. She overcame through education and music. She marched on through community college and San Diego State, then to UC, Irvine to study Criminology, Law and Society, and earned her first master’s degree. Then sought to end the School to Prison pipeline at UCLA’s Center X and received another master’s degree and teaching credential with a completed thesis titled “Hope and Healing through Personal Stories”. Then, proceeded to complete her doctoral journey in education, with an emphasis in Organizational Development and Leadership, at Grand Canyon University to research empowerment issues in organizational change and graduated in 2023.
Certified in Peacekeeping and Conflict Resolution and Restorative Justice. Her teaching methods invite culture, healing, and restorative justice with music. She has built a practice of inclusiveness and equity in diverse classrooms in California’s most vulnerable populations. She has volunteered in urban programs in Central Los Angeles, through WriteGirl and other community programs from nonprofit organizations. Currently, she teaches full-time at a restorative public charter school in Bakersfield California. Previously, she taught general education at California’s Men’s Jail, CDCR (state prison), Chuckawalla State Prison, and California Correctional Institution. She has worked for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for about 11 years in the capacity of counselor and officer. She has taught part-time and full-time positions as Adjunct and Professor at Cerro Coso, Bakersfield, and Fresno Community Colleges in the Administration of Justice-Prison Education field. She tells her whole story in the book, 8 Degrees of Yes! My experience with Truth, Transformation and Healing, Published by Covenant Books 2022. Routines provided opportunities to teach community circles, that are predictable and accessible for students to activate prior knowledge or create bridges to connect the past material and new material through culture. Student success has come through sharing and providing opportunities for diverse perspectives, leading with student voices in the classroom through culture, through music, and through art. She believes that increasingly, more research is needed to understand the pathways to success for individuals who start from challenging beginnings and are resilient, so that society can create and support more successful outcomes for the historically marginalized. Equity in universities and colleges inspires others to reach higher and dream bigger. Individuals that have faced barriers can overcome them through mentorship, spiritual practices, and critical care, along with high expectations. Non-traditional lifestyles and diverse individuals including race, culture, age, gender, beliefs, and social status are breaking barriers and completing degrees as first and second generationers.
Visit her website for her catalog of music, books and more at EmpressTruthAkins.org
DJ Papalotl aka Buttahfly (Diana Camacho) is a Los Angeles–based multi-media artist, DJ, and audio engineer whose signature sound centers Reggae Roots and Dancehall while seamlessly blending Latin, Afrobeat, Hip Hop, and other underground styles. Trained on Technics 1200s in the mid-1990s after a formative year in Jamaica, she has since brought her turntablism and technical skills to clubs, festivals, theaters, community health fairs, and international tours across the U.S., Mexico, Europe, Japan, the Caribbean, and the UK. A certified audio recording engineer and experienced stage manager, educator, and Aztec dancer, she co-runs KINGSTON12 Hi-Fi with SHINEHEAD, producing multiple weekly radio shows and continues to champion community-centered “edutainment” that bridges reggae and hip hop culture, history, grassroots, media, and social justice.
Queen Theresa King is a New Orleans–born, Southern California–based singer‑songwriter, visionary community leader, and world peace advocate who uses spiritually grounded, message‑driven music to inspire social transformation. A founder of Eradicate the Hate Inc., she works to address economic, food, and housing insecurity while lobbying for systemic change and building bridges between communities and policymakers. Her compositions—described by Timbaland as worthy of international acclaim—have been crafted with collaborators such as platinum producer Kenny McCloud and performed alongside luminaries including Stevie Wonder, drawing comparisons to Bobby McFerrin for their joyful, empowering impact. As a consultant to the Hip‑Hop4Peace/UNESCO/UNN 2024 Conference, a member of the LA Police Clergy Council, and a recipient of honors including Orange County’s 2022 Black History Parade Grand Marshal and the Congressional Community Pride Award, she continues to serve as a beacon of compassion, cultural leadership, and global peace advocacy.
Dale Virgo, professionally known as Dizzle, is a record producer, mixing engineer, and creative director from Kingston, Jamaica, now based in Los Angeles. His sound is rooted in emotion, culture, and precision. With credits across hip-hop, reggae, pop, and R&B, he has worked at the highest levels of the global music industry — from Geejam Studios in Jamaica, where he served as in-house producer and produced the track “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” on Rihanna’s debut-era album A Girl Like Me (2006), to studios across the United States, building a catalog that spans generations and genres. Over 18 years, he has completed more than 60 albums with 100+ major artists, and he is the founder of DZL Records and The Dizzle Lab in North Hollywood. www.dalevirgo.com
