Nashon Holloway headshot

Nashon Holloway

Musician, Vocalist, & Daughter of Griots

With a name meaning “oracle,” Nashon Holloway was born to sing healing. National Public Radio refers to the Kalamazoo-born, Chicago-bred singer’s sound as “crisp and colorful” and her soulful jazz-tinged guitar-playing is a testament to her lived manifesto: harmony is a lifestyle.

Nashon has been seen on The Oprah Winfrey Show with David Foster, with Tank and the Bangas, Kelly Rowland, Drake, Bobby McFerrin, Uniting Voices Chicago (formerly Chicago Children's Choir), Jennifer Hudson, Live with Hans Zimmer (composer for such films as The Lion King, The Dark Knight, and Inception), with Chicago Symphony Orchestra, LiV Warfield of Prince's New Power Generation, opera aficionado Paulo Szot, composer Nobuo Uematsu, and most recently she toured as a featured vocalist with American Idol! winner Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken. 

She tours around the globe performing original music as well, and often the music of legends like Stevie Wonder and Roberta Flack, Emily King, and Lianne La Havas. She is a featured musician in exhibition at The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, New York. She has also composed for independent films such as Chasing After You and has a new commercial music set for release in the fall of 2024. Listeners and audience-goers can find her touring or on social media under her own name.

Having composed original music herself for symphony orchestra, she has recorded with producer Narada Michael Walden, who wrote Whitney Houston’s first seven Billboard charting hits including "How Will I Know,” and even though her childhood mentors were Motown legend, her dream goes beyond music. 

A visual artist and educator, she calls herself a "daughter of griots" as a borrowed term from West African poets, musicians, and creatives who maintain the oral histories of their people through art.

Nashon has an undergraduate Bachelor of Arts in poetry, philosophy, and vocal jazz (study under Dr. Steve Zegree and Dr. Duane Davis at Western Michigan University). Thusly, she combines various art forms (including visual elements) as immersive healing modalities within the concert or exhibition experience.

Nashon is a mentor with The Light (A Collaboraction Young Artists Initiative in Chicago), a program designed to offer resources to young people pursuing music and music business with the interest of cultivating social change.

She currently serves as Vice Chair of Arts & Ancestry at The Institute of Public Scholarship and performs music full-time. 

Profile image by: Chollette

Featured Artworks

  •  Black woman with short hair and blonde highlights stands with her guitar before a microphone, her mouth opened in song and eyes closed Courtesy of Aragon Artists
  •  Black and white image of a six musicians assembled onstage in front of a boisterous and clapping crowd Nashon Holloway and the Funktion. Photo by Derek Ketchum.
  •  Nashon Holloway artwork Nashon performing at Catalyst University
  •  Nashon Holloway artwork Photo by Phillip Tawanchaya.
  •  Shimmery stage lights on a Black woman with short hair holding her guitar and standing before a microphone Photo by Xavier Leeds. Courtesy of Lena Blu Foundation.

Nashon Holloway has crowd-funded a project with 3AP

  • Taste the Wild Summer

    • $6,435 raised of $6,000 goal
    • 0 Days 0:00:00 LEFT
      • 3Arts matched
      • 107% funded

    STRETCH GOAL! Thank you so much to everyone in my community who contributed to this campaign!!! I can't believe we've made it this far! We reached our first milestone to cover the cost of promotional material with our initial goal of $6,000. With time …

    Read more about Taste the Wild Summer