Rob Fields is the Festival’s Founder and Chief Curator, who developed the Festival as a natural outgrowth of the work that he’s been doing on his alt music and culture blog Boldaslove.us.
He has been a frequent guest on NPR, and writes for the Huffington Post, TheRoot.com, TheGrio.com and EbonyJet.com, among others. He has been a guest several times on NPR, hosted artist interviews for BET/CentricTV, and was a panelist at SXSW 2009 and SXSW 2010, where he interviewed seminal black punk band Death. He’s also spoken at CMJ09 and Indiana University’s Black Rock Conference.
Rob is a former marketing agency executive who worked at WPP’s Uniworld Group and Dentsu-affiliate Renegade Marketing Group. His background includes working with brands such as Burger King Corporation; IBM; Panasonic; Urbanworld Film Festival; Capitol Records; General Motors; as well as individual artists and organizations such as the Black Rock Coalition (where he was the director of PR); and the Caribbean Cultural Center. He marketed and distributed Bridgett M. Davis’ debut feature film, Naked Acts, which made money from its theatrical release in New York City—a rarity among indie films–and is now available on DVD.
You can follow him on Twitter or via his personal site.