Amanda “Bonita” Mester is a music industry professional, journalist, editor, and academic based in New Orleans. She is currently a Justice Studies PhD student at the University of New Orleans, where she hopes to focus on issues of restorative justice for members of the BIPOC community. She received her master’s degree in Media Studies from Fordham University in 2010, after which she went on to teach Media Criticism at Adelphi University. In 2017, she began a three-year tenure as the Digital Editor at OffBeat, the city’s pre-eminent music and culture publication. She served as Contributing Editor for the prestigious hip-hop publication Ambrosia for Heads, and has additional bylines at Genius, Audiomack, and DJ Booth. More recently, she co-founded the Gentilly Agency with Raj Smoove, where she leads efforts in artist development and management. She is a member of Gambit’s Big Easy Awards music committee and has moderated panels produced by the Jazz & Heritage Foundation Under her independent creative agency Under the Sun, she works with some of New Orleans’ pre-eminent hip-hop talent including Alfred Banks, glbl wrmng, Kr3wcial and many others.

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