MUMU FRESH

Maimouna Youssef also known as Mumu Fresh is GRAMMY-Nominated, Indigenous Music award-winning, 3 X Washington Area Music award (WAMMIE) winning, Urban World Music Video award-winning, Musical and Cultural Ambassador for the US State Department, former elected governor of the DC chapter of The Recording Academy, co-creator of the Recording Academy’s “Best Song for Social Change” award, IMAN central roster artist and an Ambassador of The Black Music Collective. 

Mumu Fresh has performed on two separate NPR Tiny Desk concerts which both surpassed 1 Million views each. She has toured internationally as a critically acclaimed singer, Emcee, songwriter, activist, workshop facilitator and now audio engineer who’s been called a “quadruple threat” by The Roots’ Black Thought, a musical “Quasar” by Indie rap legend TechN9ne, & “groundbreaking” by Oscar-winning artist, Common.

While touring 6 continents, Mumu Fresh has built a relationship with over 275K engaged fans who have shared and streamed her recorded music millions of times in at least 192 countries throughout the world to date.  Mumu Fresh has shared the stage and or collaborated with the likes of Dave Chappelle, Amy Schumer, The Roots, Salaam Remi, D Smoke, Sting, Lalah Hathaway, Anderson Paak, Bruno Mars, Femi Kuti, Angelique Kidjoe, Nas, Jill Scott, Ed Sheeran, Common, Busta Rhymes, Method Man, Raphael Saadiq & Tobe Nwigwe just to name a few. 

Her soul-stirring performances stole the show at the Black Girls Rock Awards 2019 and Black Music Honors 2019 and 2021. She’s rocked stages at acclaimed music festivals including the Forbes Blk Summit Essence Music Festival, Global Citizens, The Roost Picnic, Dubai’s Sole Fest DBX, Montreux Switzerland’s Jazz Festival, Mind Valley’s A-fest in Cartegena Columbia, The ESPYs and SXSW. Mumu Fresh’s music and philanthropic endeavours have been featured in publications and on platforms such as Variety, Ebony, Essence, BET, NPR, Al-Jazeera, Rolling Stone, AfroPunk, Sway in the Morning & more.

Among her most recent accomplishments is her contribution to creating and launching the Recording Academy’s historic trustee award entitled “Best Song For Social Change”  which went live in 2023 at the 66th GRAMMY awards show and was presented by The First Lady, Jill Biden. The award was created by Mumu Fresh and her co-chair Wayna, assisted by NY chapter’s Carlos Chirinos, supported by the DC Chapter and ratified by the Recording Academy’s board of Trustees to bring awareness to social awareness justice themes that may have been under-represented or marginalized in the mainstream music scene in the past. It is their hope that this new award will foster a path to greater awareness, understanding, communication and empathetic action amongst communities worldwide.

Maimouna serves on the board of the copyright alliance and has advocated on artists’ rights in Congress. Maimouna has served as a mentor for several Grammy U affiliated young aspiring artists. In 2020, she founded her own online music education platform called “Muniversity Studies” to teach aspiring and reemerging artists how to reimagine the music business and thrive independently with purpose. In 2023 she partnered with The Duke Ellington School for The Arts’ Theater department as the Musical Director to compose and arrange the score for their rendition of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. 

Most recently Maimouna has founded a non-profit organization with her mother, renowned sound healer, water pourer and culture keeper, Wapajea Walks on Water. The organization houses their family retreat center called Mountain Eagle Place, located in Freeman Virginia. Mountain Eagle Place is named after their matriarch Mountain Eagle Woman and is a haven for cultural preservation and restoration of indigenous practices and connectedness to the natural world. 

Mumu Fresh is quickly becoming renowned as a sound healer and an independent music mogul for her generation. She is committed to ‘Art Activism’ and has performed and given lectures at dozens of Universities throughout the US and abroad as well as within the US prison system, The Congressional Black Caucus, I.M.A.N. Central in Chicago & Atlanta, The W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Ford Foundation, The Indigenous People’s Movement and more,. Mumu Fresh is a global citizen, musical healer, cultural philanthropist and community pillar.

Mumu Fresh will embark on a national tour this spring to promote her new album “The Healing” coming in May 2024.