Ep 68 Hakeem Leonard

“We’re doing music therapy because of people’s humanity, not
because of what people lack”


Luke spoke to Hakeem Leonard at the EMTC conference, Queen
Margaret University, Edinburgh, in June 2022.


Hakeem Leonard is an Associate Professor of Music Therapy and the
Assistant Provost for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity at
Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia (United States). In
his music therapy role, he has taught a range of courses, but
most enjoys his social justice in music/arts and psychology of
music courses, where the nexus of his current research focus lies
in developing a desire-based, lifespan developmental framework to
shape education, training, and personhood in and beyond music
therapy. His published scholarship includes rehabilitation work
as well as work rooted in anti-racist and culturally sustaining
perspectives. Those include the article “The Problematic
Conflation of Justice and Equality: The Case for Equity in Music
Therapy” and his most recent co-authored chapter in the new
Colonialism and Music Therapy text. 


He has a passion for walking alongside students in their
developmental growth process as culturally reflexive, confident,
whole persons, with excellent music therapy knowledge and skills.
He likes to stay grounded through various practices of listening
and to experience joy through rest, creating things, and vibing
with experiences and people. He is invested in conversations of
anti-colonial and anti-oppressive practice from a place of
intuition, desire, sustenance, love, wholeness, and
relationship. 


He is active on Instagram (@musicallman) where he shares about
life, music therapy, and inclusion. 


References


Devlin, K. (2018). How do I see you, and what does that mean for
us? An autoethnographic study. Music Therapy
Perspectives, 36(2), 234-242.


Dissanayake, E. (1993). Homo aestheticus: Where art comes
from and why. University of Washington Press.


Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of black folk. Chicago:
McClurg.


Fisher, C. & Leonard, H. (2022). Unsettling the classroom and
the session: Anticolonial framing for Hip hop music therapy
education and clinical work. In CAMTI Collective,
Colonialism and music therapy (p. 305-334). Barcelona
Publishers.


Kenny, C. (2014, March). The field of play: An ecology of being
in music therapy. In Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy,
14(1).


The Colonialism, & Music Therapy Interlocutor’s (CAMTI)
Collective. (2022). Colonialism and Music Therapy. Barcelona
Publishers.


Trondalen, G. (2016). Relational music therapy: An
intersubjective perspective. Barcelona Publishers.


Persons Referenced


Clifford K. Madsen


http://www.cliffordmadsen.com



Jayne Standley


https://music.fsu.edu/person/jayne-standley/



Tom Sweitzer


http://www.aplacetobeva.org/a-place-to-be-staff