Abby Dobson

A Sonic Conceptualist Performing Artist, Composer, Activist, and Scholar Abby Dobson is also an Artist-in-Residence with the African American Policy Forum (AAPF). She has performed at the Apollo Theater, Blue Note Jazz Club, Hammer Museum & The Tonight Show. Her CD, “Sleeping Beauty: You Are the One You Have Been Waiting On” received rave reviews. Abby’s “State of Grace” vocal performance on Talib Kweli’s album “Gravitas” was nominated for a 2014 BET Hip Hop Award for Best Impact Song. She was also featured on Talib Kweli’s album, “Prisoner of Conscious” on “Before He Walked” (2013). Abby has lent backing vocals to artists ranging from John Legend to Talib Kweli. Accompanied by her band Abby has shared the stage with Talib Kweli, Gregory Porter, Ledisi, Rahsaan Patterson, Dwele, Chrisette Michele, Floetry, Kindred, and Leela James.

Passionate about using music as a tool for empathy cultivation, Abby creates music to inspire audiences to engage in action to promote transformative social change. She was a 2017 Create Change Fellow with The Laundromat Project and performs with Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter. She is also a member of the Resistance Revival Chorus, a women’s ensemble born out of the Women’s March in 2017. Abby’s song #SayHerName, inspired by AAPF’s campaign of the same name, is featured on The Resistance Revival’s debut album, “This Joy”, released in 2020 on Righteous Babe Records. Abby’s song “#SayHerName” was featured on Ava DuVernay’s hit television series Queen Sugar on the OWN Network. Abby recently founded the Freedom Now Sonic Ensemble, an acapella vocal ensemble.

Abby received a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center and a Bachelor’s degree from Williams College. She currently serves as President of the National Organization for Women-NYC Chapter and as a Member of the National Organization for Women’s PAC.

Abby Dobson also recently joined the North Star Fund’s Let Us Breathe Community Funding Committee, an activist-led grant-making body for the Let Us Breathe Fund that supports Black-led grassroots organizing. Abby’s essay “From Baldwin to Beyoncé: Exploring the Responsibility of the Artist in Society— Re-envisioning the Black Female Sonic Artist as Citizen” appears in African American Arts: Activism, Aesthetics, and Futurity (The Griot Project Book Series) published by Rutgers University Press in December 2019. Abby Dobson currently is working on “Love in Times of War”, an album slated for release on LadyBraveBirdMusicWorks in Fall 2023.