A rap lyricist, vocalist, actress and writer, Toni Blackman is the first U.S. Hip Hop Cultural Envoy for the U.S. Department of State. She is the founder and director of the Freestyle Union which is a New York-based organization for hip hop artists and rappers. Blackman's talents are widely recognized, having presented and performed alongside Erykah Badu, Mos Def, the Roots, Wu Tang, the Lilith Fair, Def Poetry, and served as a King-Chavez-Parks Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan. This former OSI/Soros Fellow, has also received a Washington Area Music Award and an invitation to the White House Millennium Celebration with Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Blackman was listed in ESSENCE Magazine's 2000 listing of 30 Women to Watch, and has been featured in the NY Times, SAVOY and Newsweek Japan. Blackman's first book "Inner-Course" (Villard/Random House) was released in late 2003. As part of her duties as a Cultural Envoy, Toni Blackman has conducted workshops and discussions and presented concerts with local youth in the cities of Man, Odienne, Ferkessedougou, Korhogo, and Bouak in the Muslim-majority north of Cote D'Ivoire. In each city, Ms. Blackman also offered small-venue concerts or hip-hop workshops for local youth.