THE DUO
AMINA & COOLOUT
UMAC is Urbanized Music Amina & Chris
The veteran Chicago-based Hip-Hop duo of Amina and Coolout Chris. Their mission is to entertain, educate, and inspire audiences through their music and advocacy of Hip-Hop as a vehicle for progressive change.
BIO
A duo since the late 90s, Urbanized Music has spent the past two and a half decades creating music that celebrates the golden era of Hip-Hop rooted in lyricism, deep basslines, breaks, and boom-bap rhythms. Amina is an emcee/songwriter, organizer, and educator, and Coolout Chris is a producer, engineer, emcee, and DJ. Both are respected figures in the Chicago Hip-Hop community.
Urbanized has performed extensively, featuring on prominent stages like Steppenwolf Theater, Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Navy Pier’s Skyline Stage, the Chicago Cultural Center, Double Door, The Vic, Metro, and Promontory. They rocked stages and sat on panels alongside notables like Tef Poe, Fat Joe, DMC, Killer Mike, Dres (Black Sheep), Slum Village, Guru, Rakim, Chris Rivers, Bodega Brothers, MC Lyte, and Large Professor; And featured at festivals like Uptown Unity Fest, African Festival of the Arts, Silver Room Block Party, CIMMFest, Antioch Hip-Hop Convergence, Paint Louis, and the St Louis Underground Music Festival.
In 2003, Urbanized Music founded the Chicago Hip-Hop Initiative, a Hip-Hop empowerment collaborative; later that same year, they co-founded Chicago Hip-Hop Heritage Month, an official observance recognizing July as Chicago Hip-Hop Month.
In 2010, they were selected to serve as United States Cultural Envoys in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa, where they performed, conducted workshops, and helped foster an understanding of American culture while encouraging young people to use Hip-Hop peacefully. This experience was chronicled in their independently produced documentary "Keep It Moving-The Movie: Chicago Hip-Hop to Cote d’Ivoire", which premiered at the Chicago International Movies and Music Festival in 2011.
Listen to: A DAY IN THE LIFE on Spotify