The Many Modes of Maggie
The Legacy Company (TLC)
I most enjoy using my gifts to inspire a greater sense of responsibility for the positive outcome of our future. In 1991 I embarked on creating a stage piece that would “edutain” my audience with music and my own dramatic reflection on the history & evolution of African American music. The show is called “LEGACY: Our Wealth of Music.” It is the vehicle through which I can sing, narrate and demonstrate my love for a wide range of music styles. Having formed TLC in 1997, I have enjoyed many seasons performing LEGACY in front of a wide range of audiences. I now find it natural to improvise and feel-out my audience-tailoring my show for the group at hand. LEGACY is up-beat, interactive, intelligence-building entertainment benefitting all ages. The show is performed one-woman style or with a live band accompanying the sixty minute, soul inspiring journey into a slice of American history.
A Brownhouse Foundation
Coming out of high school and heading into college, I was keenly aware that my father had a gold mine of talent and material which I wanted to help preserve and proliferate. I entered Columbia College Chicago minoring in the business of music publishing. As well as performing on stage with him, in his later years, I assisted my father with booking and publishing administration. Others of my siblings have taken up the helm of contributing to the business side of the entertainment involvements of our family. Calling the family business Brownhouse Productions is a no brainer. It is my intention to have Brown family members handle or at least understand what is going on with the artistic works of OBJ specifically. Working with music and film industry creatives, artists, producers, theater companies and literary publishers, the family seeks to expose more of the world to more of what OBJ left the company, which is actually called Bootblack Publishing Company LLC.
We are proud to have celebrated a particularly significant street being named “Oscar Brown, Jr. Way” in Chicago’s Harper Court in Hyde Park. (2015).
October 10, 2018 would have been OBJ’s 92nd birthday, and was celebrated by kicking-off a series of play readings by Brown. Through generous support from the Revada Foundation, the activity is part of Maggie's ongoing Artists' Residency at the University of Chicago's Logan Center for the Arts. Together with Africa Brown and other Brown family members the Oscar Brown, Jr. Archive Project was instituted to illuminate the great volume of poetry, theater and music which Oscar Brown Jr. composed. To find out more about OBJ material, contact publishing administrator, CMG.
2Brown Sisters
Of my father’s seven children, several of us have forged a career from our artistic talent. The youngest in our family is my sister Africa Brown. You see how beautiful she is! Singer, Dancer and African drummer, Africa Pace Brown, is also the daughter of legendary actress, dancer and singer, Jean Pace Brown. Jean and Oscar brought my sister up right in the spotlight during the height of their careers. So no wonder Africa earned a prestigious Joseph Jefferson Award at the tender age of eight, for her co-starring role in Dad’s play: In De Beginnin’.
These days, in our family, my sister Africa and I are on the front line of proliferating the works of our Dad and also our late brother, Oscar Brown, III. Both Oscars left us too soon bequeathing our family with a giant catalog of songs and plays we love continuing to work with. We have been collaborating for years, only officially naming our duet activities: 2Brown Sisters at the end of 2015. It is a Company, soon to be a Brand, representing what we have together: a strong sisterhood that is musical and harmonious-in spite of a lot of odds. We are proud of the Artists from which we come and of the Artists we are evolving in to. We feel committed to the idea of getting much more Brownhouse material out to the world; and we especially like what we are able to do together in that regard. Recording our original material, plus songs of our father, as well as managing and producing the works of OBJ is our primary focus.
2Brown Sisters conduct workshops and arts residencies which inspire responsible entertainment choices, etiquette, anti-violence, anti-teen pregnancy, inter-generational communication, music and spoken word creation.
