Maya Shipman

Academic Year 2026-2027

Nasir Jones Hip Hop Fellow

Maya Shipman, professionally known as Suzi Analogue, is an award-winning scholar, artist, producer, composer, and founder of Never Normal Records. Rooted in the cultural traditions of the East Coast Black American experience, from Baltimore and the Bronx to New York City and with Indigenous family roots in North Carolina, she is now based in Miami. Her work explores, from a compositional lens, how regional and migratory Black recording traditions have shaped global sound cultures through the recording arts

An internationally acclaimed performer, educator, and Recording Academy member, she has actively toured, performed, and led workshops across five continents, fostering creative exchange through collaborations with artists and communities worldwide, including serving as the founding music director for UNC Hip-Hop Ensemble, and collaborating with emerging East African hip-hop and electronic music movements.

BY ANY MEANZ SONICALLY

Maya Shipman’s fellowship project is BY ANY MEANZ SONICALLY. As a 2026–27 Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, Shipman's research explores hip-hop as a living archive, the recording arts techniques of Black women across American music history, and the role of sound in place-making and community building. It examines how musical traditions are preserved, transformed, and transmitted through the recording arts, illuminating Black women's enduring innovations in music production, recording technologies, and sonic culture. The project culminates in new musical works, public lecture-performances, immersive listening experiences, and educational resources that bridge scholarship and artistic practice, revealing sound as a powerful medium for cultural memory, storytelling, and future-making.