Tarica June

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About Tarica June: Tarica June’s critically-acclaimed mixtape, Moonlight Revolution (2010), was deemed the first modern-day project to confront issues of empowerment and misogyny in hip-hop from a woman’s perspective. Since its release, Tarica has performed around the country, incorporating elements of traditional hip-hop, folk music, and spoken-word/poetry into her live shows. She has been featured at numerous festivals and conferences including the Can-A-Sista-Rock-A-Mic Festival, SXSW (TX), the DOPE(Dialogue on Progressive Enlightenment) Conference (North Carolina A&T University), the S.A.M.I. (Students Against Mass Incarceration) National Conference (Howard University), the B-Girl-Be Hip-Hop Festival, and the ‘For the Love of Black Womyn: Reclaiming the Radical Tradition of Black Feminism’ Conference (Howard University). Tarica also conducted a concert series dedicated to raising funds for community-centered organizations. Benefiting organizations included DC Jobs with Justice, Empower DC, Words Beats & Life, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and KayNou. Tarica June’s path to music was unconventional. She first came to love and appreciate the power of the word at the age of eight when she started penning poetry and songs. Using the creative process for cathartic purposes, and keeping her words safely tucked away in private spaces, her first introduction to the D.C. music scene came much later (around 5 years ago) as part of ‘The Movement’. There she found herself being creative in another way–crocheting and knitting custom pieces for a local artists. Through these connections she linked with a number of producers and musicians, and began recording her previously unshared musings. Tarica June’s influences are extremely diverse– she names both poets and musical artists — Joni Mitchell, Sonia Sanchez, Nas, Ntozake Shange, Blackstar (Mos Def/Yasiin Bey & Talib Kweli), Tracy Chapman, Meshell Ndgeocello, Dead Prez, Rah Digga, OutKast — when discussing her most pronounced inspirations.