Jecorey Arthur was born on May 19, 1992. He lived with his mother, aunt, and grandmother in the West End of Louisville, KY’s Parkland Neighborhood, the birthplace of Muhammad Ali. As a pre-teen he discovered a passion for music to help cope with the struggles of racism, poverty, and violence.
Jecorey participated in different music programs including concert band, percussion ensemble, orchestra, drumline, and marching band, where he learned leadership skills as drum major. In addition to learning how to play percussion, he started producing hip hop and writing songs. He applied what he learned in extracurricular programs to his community, using music to bring family and friends together.
After graduating high school in 2010, Jecorey enrolled in a collegiate music education program. He started teaching part-time in public schools and at after-school programs around the region. In 2014 he earned a Bachelor’s of Music Education and in 2015 earned a Master’s of Arts in Teaching from the University of Louisville.
Jecorey performed around the world as a classically trained percussionist and hip hop artist. In 2016 he started 1200 LLC to help other artists get paid gigs and teach young people life skills through event production. 1200 LLC helped organize a wide range of community initiatives including the inaugural I AM ALI Festival following Muhammad Ali’s passing, the grand reopening of the Speed Art Museum, Better Block Parkland, Forecastle Festival’s West Louisville Showcase, and the award-winning ReSurfaced project, where underutilized surface lots were repurposed as music and art plazas.
In 2017 Jecorey became a professor of music at the first college for Black Kentuckians and Louisville’s only HBCU, Simmons College of Kentucky. In addition to teaching music courses, he teaches a sociology course about community organizing, and does civic research projects.
In 2020 Jecorey was elected to the Louisville Metro Council. Since joining, Arthur has sponsored and passed over 170 pieces of legislation to address homelessness, poverty, discrimination, violence, and more.
Jecorey Arthur is a teacher, musician, and activist from Louisville, KY.
As a teacher, Arthur has served students of all ages around the world in schools, libraries, community centers, detention centers, and beyond, including a tour to Boys and Girls Clubs of Kentuckiana, a cultural exchange with De Montfort University in England, and an artist-in-residency at New York City's 92nd Street Y.
As a musician, Arthur has performed at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, Big Ears Festival, Forecastle Festival, and Switzerland's Jungfrau Erzählfestival; performed as a soloist with the Stereo Hideout Brooklyn Orchestra and the Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Dallas, San Francisco, San Diego, Indianapolis, Nashville, Columbus, Dayton, Florida, Cincinnati, and Oregon Symphony Orchestras; performed as the first hip hop artist with the Louisville Orchestra including world premieres of folk opera The Way Forth and rap opera The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, where he starred as his hometown hero. Arthur has also composed original music for theatre, film, television, radio, podcast, and studio albums.
As an activist, Arthur has organized artists to address social issues, produced events to create local jobs, and worked with the American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) Foundation—writing public policy, organizing political campaigns, and training organizers across America. In 2019, he became a BMe Genius Fellow, using his award to help open the Parkland Plaza, an outdoor green space, community venue, and natural playground in his childhood neighborhood. In 2020, Arthur's community organizing inspired him to run for city council, where he won and made history as the city's youngest councilmember. Since joining Louisville Metro Council, Arthur has sponsored and passed over 130 pieces of legislation to address homelessness, poverty, discrimination, violence, and more.
In addition to being on city council, Arthur is currently a music and sociology professor at the Historically Black College and University—Simmons College of Kentucky, an artist roster member of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN), a percussion instructor at the Louisville Academy of Music, and an endorsed artist with Salyers Percussion. You can follow Arthur online at @jecoreyarthur.