Martin Perna is an educator and multidisciplinary artist living in Berkeley, California.
[1] Perna founded the musical groups Antibalas[2] and Ocote Soul Sounds,[3] and has written for and/or recorded with TV on the Radio, Santigold, Toro y Moi, Sharon Jones, Jovanotti, Scarlett Johansson, Baaba Maal, Angelique Kidjo, David Byrne, the Whitefield Brothers, the Daktaris, No Surrender, Apsci, Architecture in Helsinki, and many other groups.
[10] In 2018, in collaboration with poet Roger Reeves and members of Antibalas, he set to music works by student poets at Miami Edison High School and performed the works together with the students and members of Spam All Stars at the North Miami Beach Bandshell as part of the O Miami Poetry Festival.
[11] In 2020, he performed the music for "Fourth of July", narrated by actor/spoken word artist Daveed Diggs, and written by Safia Elhillo, Danez Smith, Lauren Whitehead, W. Kamau Bell, Angel Nafis, Idris Goodwin, Pharoahe Monch, Camonghne Felix, and Nate Marshall, inspired by Frederick Douglass's historic speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
"[12] In 2023 he collaborated with visual artist Courtney Desiree Morris on the performance art piece "Sopera de Yemaya: Bendición" as part of the "Remedios" show at C3A in Cordoba, Spain.