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Stephan Said is an Iraqi American singer, songwriter and activist who has been called "this generation's Woody Guthrie" (Billboard Magazine) and compared to Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Bob Marley in publications such as the New York Times, BBC, Radio France International, and more. His music draws on pop, world, hip-hop, rock, and folk music to cross boundaries with an infectious message of unity. An outspoken advocate of peace, interfaith dialogue, equality and human rights, his song "The Bell" was "the first major song against the war in Iraq"(Neil Strauss, NY Times) and hailed as "the antiwar anthem of this generation."(GNN) The Bell pioneered the use of the internet to distribute mp3’s and music videos for social causes (Billboard Magazine). Called the troubadour of the “mouvement altermondialiste” (‘the global justice movement’, L’Humanite), he was integral in organizing the Seattle demonstrations against the WTO, and the A16 demonstrations in Washington advocating an end to Washington Consensus development policy. His essays on music and global affairs have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Progressive Magazine, Sing Out! Magazine, Folker Magazine (Germany), The Huffington Post, AlterNet, and others.

Stephan’s new album, difrent:, (Fall 2010), with Grammy Award winning Producer Hal Willner (Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Bono, Saturday Nite Live), features his most universal songwriting to date, with cinematic love songs and pop anthems to global tolerance and peace in English, Arabic, French and Spanish. The album debuts an all-star band featuring Cindy Blackman on drums, Kevin Hunter on mandolin and guitar, Yousif Sheronick on percussion, and George Mitchell on upright and electric bass. Strings and horns include recording legends Lenny Pickett, Howard Johnson, Earl Gardner, Art Baron, and Jane Scarpantoni. Stephan is releasing the album to launch his biggest music venture for social change yet, difrent: the global broadcasting platform for music for social change.

Visit Stephansaid.com

For nearly 70 years as a performer, Pete Seeger has embodied the ideals of folk music – communication, entertainment, social comment, historical continuity, inclusiveness. The songs he has written, and those he has discovered and shared, have helped preserve our cultural heritage, imprinting adults and children with the sounds, traditions and values of our global past and present. A fearless warrior for social justice and the environment, Pete’s political activism – from the Civil Rights movement and anti-McCarthyism to resistance to fascism and the wars in Vietnam and the Middle East – has become the template for subsequent generations of musicians and ordinary citizens with something to say about the world.

Born and raised in Accra, Ghana, Blitz the Ambassador grew up to the sounds of Afro-Beat, Highlife, Jazz, and Motown. But when his older brother introduced him to Public Enemy’s classic album, It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, as a young boy, he was changed forever. “I had never heard young Black people express themselves in that way before,” recalls Blitz.

After moving to the U.S. to attend college, Blitz continued to hone his musical skills, releasing several mixtapes as an undergrad at Kent State University. After graduation, Blitz moved to New York City to pursue his dream. In NYC, Blitz began to record, Stereotype, a live-instrument-heavy musical exploration, that tests the limits of Hip Hop. Drawing from his diverse musical background, he dove into the project with explicit intent of changing Hip Hop forever. In order to achieve the live sound he was looking for, he formed a band, The Embassy Ensemble, and brushed off his own djembe skills.

After three long years of recording, Blitz took the album to several major labels. Getting the major label run around one to many times, Blitz decided go it alone.

“One day I just said, ‘Fuck it’,” recounts Blitz. “I was tired of record labels telling me I had to be like somebody else. So I came home and wrote, Remembering the Future,” Blitz explains. This epic, instrument-laden, track illustrates Blitz’ refusal to be a Stereotypical rapper. The chorus of the song is, ‘I am who I am / and you can never change me / Reaching for the sun / remembering the future.’

Now, his label, Embassy MVMT is proving that Hip Hop fans are ready for the future. Hungry for a change, and sick-and-tired of the juvenile radio hits, Blitz the Ambassador is here to give the people what they want.

All star band with Cindy Blackman, Kevin Hunter, Art Baron, Earl Gardner, Yousif Sheronick, Lenny Pickett