Sounding Home: a conversation with Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist, composer, playwright, and scholar, Somi

• Event Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2026
• Time: 2:00 pm–3:15 pm (CDT)
• Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL

• Talk

With Dr. Dora N. Watkins, School of Social Work

Sounding Home holds two ideas simultaneously: home as something we inhabit and home as something we create, express, remember, and carry. What happens when sound becomes one of the ways we locate ourselves; in relationship to place, culture, history, other people, and our own becoming?

This dialogue will move through interconnected questions of making and carrying home; music as memory and cultural expression; migration, identity, and place-making; and the relationships and conditions that allow people and communities to flourish. Somi’s existing body of work provides a foundation for these questions, while her current project, What Does It Take to Bloom?, offers an opportunity to consider where those inquiries are taking her now. 

Somi’s visit is partially funded by Leveraging the Arts for Global Dialogue: Exploring Racial and Social Transnational Justice through Creative Expression (external link), an interdisciplinary grant initiative from the Illinois Global Institute (IGI) and led by the University of Illinois School of Social Work and Krannert Center for the Performing Art in partnership with WGGP, Fine Arts, the Asian American Cultural Center, Center for Global Studies, McKinley Foundation, and the Council on Teacher Education.

Somi will perform at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, September 17, 2026 at 7:30 pm.

Somi Kakoma (“Somi”)

Vocalist, composer, actor, and playwright Somi Kakoma is the Midwestern daughter of immigrants from Uganda and Rwanda. Hailed by The New York Times as “a virtuosic performer in full command of her instrument and powers,” she is known in the international jazz world simply as ‘Somi’. Her 2021 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album made her the first African woman ever nominated in any of the Grammy jazz categories, as well as the first Rwandan or Ugandan ever nominated for a Grammy. Her last release, Zenzile: The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba, was a companion project to the critically acclaimed original musical “Dreaming Zenzile” that Somi also wrote and starred in Off-Broadway as a tribute to the great South African singer and activist. Her new album, What Does It Take to Bloom?, was released in August 2026.   She holds degrees in Cultural Anthropology and African Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Master’s degree in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, and a PhD in Critical Inquiry & Creative Practice from Harvard University. In her heart of hearts, she loves family, poetry, and freedom.  

Dr. Dora N. Watkins, PhD, MSW

Dr. Watkins is a Teaching Assistant Professor and BSW Program Director in the School of Social Work. As Krannert Center’s former Director of Campus Engagement, she also continues to consult with the Center’s engagement team on their relational engagement practice. Her scholarship and practice sit at the intersections of critical arts-informed inquiry, storytelling, embodiment, healing justice, and relational and community-engaged methodologies.