Ifeoma (Ify) White-Thorpe hails from the great state of New Jersey and is of Nigerian and Jamaican descent. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School where she served as the President of the “Recording Artists Project at Harvard Law School”, a Pro Bono legal clinic for music clients. Ify also serves as the CEO and founder of KOLO Publishing, an incubator dedicated to developing and publishing works written by Black women and girls. Ify served as a Business and Legal Affairs Emerging Talent Associate at Warner Music Group and Atlantic Records in 2022 and 2023 respectively and as a Legal Resident at Roc Nation in 2023. In 2019, Ify was recruited by the CMO of Converse, Inc. to help conceive and spearhead the Converse All Stars Series– an international platform and community providing mentorship and creative opportunities for artists and activists. Ify served as co-chair on the Steering Committee for the Converse All Stars Series from 2019 to 2021. In 2018, a year after being admitted into all Ivy League schools and Stanford, she was recognized by BET as one of the “Great 28” future force African Americans in honor of Black History Month. In 2015, she won the National SELMA Essay and Speech competition hosted by Paramount Pictures. Her award-winning speech and essay on civil rights have been on display in the National Liberty Museum for over ten years. She has also received state senate proclamations from New Jersey and Maryland respectively for her academic feats and research. Ify is a board member of the African Creative Economies Initiative (ACE) spearheaded by Harvard Law School, through which she aids in building out infrastructure which protects Africa’s creative capital. She currently works as a corporate lawyer in New York City, focusing on intellectual property and music matters. Ify also serves as a Lecturer at Yale College where she teaches her original course, “AIght?”: Hip-Hop, AI, and the Law, based on her research entitled “Mo Sample’ Mo’ Problem: Traditional Conventions of Modern Black Music and Sampling Rights”, published by the Virginia Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law. In addition to her Harvard Law education, Ify holds degrees from Harvard College in Government and Chemistry.