Martha Diaz

Colombian-American futurist Martha Diaz (MD) is an award-winning community organizer, media producer, archivist, curator, educator, techie, and social entrepreneur. One of Women’s eNews distinguished 21 Leaders for the 21st Century, she has traversed the Hip-Hop entertainment industry, the public arts and education sector, and the academy over the past 30 years. Her passion is advancing human rights and transforming communities through Hip-Hop education, media, and technology. MD has produced and consulted on numerous Hip-Hop media projects including, Where My Ladies At? by Leba Haber Rubinoff (2007), Black August: A Hip-Hop Concert by dream hampton (2010), Nas: Time Is Illmatic by One9 (2014), and Dear Mama (2023). In 2002, MD founded the highly acclaimed Hip-Hop Odyssey (H2O) International Film Festival, the first festival of its kind. She was invited to curate the first Hip-Hop movie series presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and served as a guest curator at the Museum of the Moving Image and The Schomburg Center.Through her exhibitions and publications of research reports, books, and curricula, she has chronicled Hip-Hop history to preserve its cultural value and memory in addition to formalizing the field of Hip-Hop education. MD has worked on archival projects with Parkwood Entertainment (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter), Tupac Shakur Estate, National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Ralph McDaniels' Video Music Box Collection, and Paley Center for Media, to name a few. MD was a Senior Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History - Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, Fellow at Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Program in Social Entrepreneurship, A'Lelia Bundles Community Scholar at Columbia University, Nasir Jones Fellow at Harvard University, and inaugural Fellow at the Center for Creative and Entertainment Arts at Virginia State University. MD was a Visiting Scholar at Virginia Union University, and is currently a Senior Civic Media Fellow at the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab. She also serves as an advisor and program partner of the Universal Hip Hop Museum. Most recently, MD worked on the A&E TV Series Hip Hop Treasures (2023) as one of the Archive Producers.