Faculty

Toki Wright
Toki.Wright@mcnallysmith.edu
Program Coordinator, Hip Hop
Faculty Member Since: 2009
Primary Department: Hip Hop

Professional Experience: Toki Wright is a Twin Cities based emcee, poet, and community organizer. He is the newest artist on Rhymesayers Entertainment.  Wright has been featured on recordings by Atmosphere, C-Rayz Walz. P.O.S., and more.  His performance credits include Scribble Jam, SXSW, Coachella, Bumbershoot, Sons d’Hiver, and Prairie Home Companion. Wright tours throughout the United States and Canada as an opening act and hype man for Brother Ali, and is a member of the groups The C.O.R.E. and The Chosen Few.

As a community organizer, Toki has led the nationally recognized youth organization YO! The Movement (featured in The Source magazine), coordinated seven Twin Cities Celebration of Hip-Hop Festivals, and taught Hip-Hop history and performance to former child soldiers in Gulu, Northern Uganda with the organization H.E.A.L.S.

Toki’s many awards include winner of the Twin Cities Hip-Hop Award in 2007, Artist of the Year (KMOJ Radio) in 2006, in 2003 he was Artist of the Year (Star Tribune), a Minnesota Music Award Nominee for Best Hip-Hop Recording, and landed in the Top 10 Albums of the Year (Star Tribune).  He has appeared as a Coach on MTV Made.  Two of his songs with the group The C.O.R.E. are featured in the film “Justice” which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award.
 

"Brandon Allday" Bagaason
Brandon.Bagaason@mcnallysmith.edu
Faculty Member Since: 2009
Primary Department: Hip Hop

Professional Experience: Brandon Allday is a Minneapolis-based hip-hop producer, performer and educator - as well as co-founder of the Mexican-American rap-duo Big Quarters. Big Quarters' self-produced debut album "Cost of Living" earned recognition as Best Hip-Hop of 2007 by Startribune and Popmatters.com. Big Quarters' follow-up "From the Home of Brown Babies & White Mothers" received acknowledgement as one of the Best Albums of 2009 by Startribune.

Brandon Allday is a co-founder of the Twin Cities only monthly hip-hop production event "Last of the Record Buyers" and co-founder of Minnesota's most-respected and recognized production crew, Famfeud.

Brandon Allday, alongside Medium Zach, developed a hip-hop songwriting and production curriculum currently used with young people in the Minneapolis YMCA. Past workshop and program sites include: La Oportunidad, Hope Community, Inter District Downtown School, Minneapolis YMCA, Pillsbury United Communities and McNally Smith College of Music.

Brandon Allday has shared stages with Cee-Lo, Slum Village, The Coup, Rhymesayers, Doomtree and Heiruspecs.

"Medium Zach" Bagaason
Zach.Bagaason@mcnallysmith.edu
Faculty Member Since: 2009
Primary Department: Hip Hop

Professional Experience: Medium Zach is a Minneapolis-based hip-hop producer, performer and educator - as well as co-founder of the Mexican-American rap-duo Big Quarters. Big Quarters' self-produced debut  album "Cost of Living" earned recognition as Best Hip-Hop of 2007 by Startribune and Popmatters.com. Big Quarters' follow-up "From the Home of Brown Babies & White Mothers" received acknowledgement as one of the Best Albums of 2009 by Startribune.

Medium Zach is a co-founder of the Twin Cities only monthly hip-hop production event "Last of the Record Buyers" and former-organizer of the TCCHH production battle from 2004 - 2007. Medium Zach is a co-founder of Minnesota's most-respected and recognized production crew, Famfeud. Individual accolades include 3-time Run Ya Jewelz Beat Battle Champion and Minneapolis' Big Tune semi-finalist.

Medium Zach, alongside Brandon Allday, developed a hip-hop songwriting and production curriculum currently used with young people in the Minneapolis YMCA. Past workshop and program sites include: La Oportunidad, Hope Community, Inter District Downtown School, Minneapolis YMCA, Pillsbury United Communities and McNally Smith College of Music.

Medium Zach has shared stages with Cee-Lo, Slum Village, The Coup, Rhymesayers, Doomtree and Heiruspecs. As a producer, he's worked with Brother Ali, I Self Devine, Toki Wright, P.O.S, Sims, Musab, Power Struggle, Mankwe Ndosi and Mux Mool.

Dessa Darling
Dessa.Darling@mcnallysmith.edu
Faculty Member Since: 2008
Primary Department: Composition
Secondary Department: Hip Hop

Professional Experience: Dessa is a published writer, an award-winning musician, a vibrant teacher, and a proud member of the Doomtree crew. As a rapper, she’s had the opportunity to share stages with KRS One, the Wu-Tang Clan, Wyclef Jean, and Craig Finn of the Hold Steady.  As a writer and spoken word poet, she is the recipient of the Jerome/SASE grant and a regular contributor to Spin Magazine’s online book forum. As a businesswoman, Dessa has helped to position Doomtree as one of the most exciting and ascendant crews in underground hip hop. She tours nationally, performing her work at schools, clubs, concert halls, and on street corners around the country. As a teacher, Dessa is eager and honored to share what she has learned from her career in independent music—to foster the skills and the ethos that will help emerging talent find success.
 

Additional Experience:

Freddy Fresh
Freddy.Fresh@mcnallysmith.edu
Faculty Member Since: 2009
Primary Department: Hip Hop

Professional Experience: Freddy Fresh (born Frederick Schmid) is among the most active and prolific American underground dance music artists, having released more than a hundred records on dozens of different labels worldwide. Born in St. Paul Minnesota, Fresh's name is more often associated with the London scene, to which he relocated in the late '90s after having top 40 chart success with 2 of his songs. Fresh's first record label was formed in late 1992 and was called Analog Recordings. His label empire then grew to include a host of sub labels (Analog UK, Butterbeat, Electric Music Foundation and then Socket and Boriqua labels) In addition to a growing stateside audience, Fresh is also one of the few contemporary non-Detroit techno/electro musicians to have a strong European following.
 
Fresh's first work behind the boards came via Bronx legends Boogie Down Productions, with Fred remixing a track for a B-side release and from there, Freddy began piecing together a studio, collecting many of the ancient analog and modular synthesizers that give his records their distinct, almost studio-jam feel (he mixes all his tracks live and sequences with an MPC 2oooXL and an MPC 4000 and uses rare pre-midi analog synths and modular systems). In 1992, after releasing debut singles on Nu Groove and Silvo Tancredis' Experimental imprint, Fresh established his first label, Analog, to release his own tracks.  His third album, The Last True Family Man, followed on Harthouse Eye Q and spawned 2 international chart hits along with a song featuring Fat Boy Slim.

In 2004 Fresh released a reference book dealing with the history of the early independent old school rap scene that catalogues every conceivable rap label from 1979 to 1989, this book has been featured in The Source, Vibe, The New York Times, Village Voice and has gone on to win journalism awards in the United States and has been recognized as the only reference book on this subject. The book is called Freddy Fresh presents The Rap Records (Nerby Publishing LLC). Freddy recently released the brand new updated Freddy Fresh presents The Rap Records Revised 2nd Edition a mammoth book with over 740 pages and more than 2,500 color photo's.

Fresh's music has also enjoyed commercial success with releases featured in films like Austin Powers Goldmember, Jackie Chan's Tuxedo and commercials by Adidas, Budweiser and Coors Lite etc.. Fresh also tours regularly and has DJ'd in over 34 countries and has performed for televised programs MTV Canada, Club TV, S2, House Viva TV, Club Spain etc.. and over 300 radio programs throughout the world including 2 sessions for the legendary late John Peel of famed Radio One BBC England.

Sean McPherson
Sean.McPherson@mcnallysmith.edu
Faculty Member Since: 2009
Primary Department: Hip Hop
Secondary Department: Composition
Formal Education:B.I.S. Music, African-American Studies, Cultural Studies University of Minnesota

Professional Experience:

Sean McPherson is the co-founder and bassist of the Twin Cities hip-hop group Heiruspecs. In addition to numerous national headlining tours, Heiruspecs has opened for Cake, Ja Rule, Lyrics Born, The White Stripes and many others. Heiruspecs’ music has been featured on Diddy’s Making His Band and VH1’s Behind the Music.

Sean McPherson is also a sought-after studio bassist in the Twin Cities and his work can be heard on Brother Ali’s Us and The Undisputed Truth, Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater 3, P.O.S.’s Ipecac Neat and Eyedea and Abilities’s E&A. Sean held a workshop for the College Board’s New York City Public School students regarding hip-hop as a professional and academic path in 2007.

Sean graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007 with an Individualized Degree in Music, African-American Studies and Cultural Studies.
 

Nneka Onyilofor
nneka.onyilofor@mcnallysmith.edu
Faculty Member Since: 2009
Primary Department: Hip Hop
Secondary Department: General Education
Formal Education:B.S. in Family Social Science and Master of Liberal Studies (M.L.S.) degree from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Professional Experience: Milwaukee, Wisconsin native with direct Nigerian ancestry, Nneka Onyilofor has attained her B.S. in Family Social Science and Master of Liberal Studies (M.L.S.) degree from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her experience in the U of M academy has been vital, as her concentration in African American and African Studies, and Global Studies has significantly broadened her scope. Being passionate about youth and her community, Nneka expanded her mission to West Africa, as she completed her master’s thesis on globalization in West African contemporary culture, with a major focus on Ghanaian hip-life music. She has studied in Ghana and French-speaking Mali. Additionally, in Spring 2008, she journeyed to Rio de Janeiro and Salvador (Bahia) Brazil to learn more about the African diaspora.
 
She has worked at African American Family Services and at the University of Minnesota as an Admissions Counselor. She was also the lead instructor for two black history courses at the University of MN and coordinated and taught a college preparation course at the Brian Coyle Center in Minneapolis.
 
Her other interests include writing, as she was a freelance writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder Newspaper and has been published in the Minneapolis Liberator and the African News Journal. She was also the founder of Moonlight Poetry, which was an open mike venue in Minneapolis, and participated in the 2008 Givens Black Writer's Retreat in Minnesota which included a personal mentorship by Amiri Baraka and a performance in the group "Nu Griots." She is currently a program director with a locally based networking and entertainment group called African Global Roots, which successfully had their first annual African arts festival summer 2009.