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 150 pieces of legislation to address homelessness, poverty, discrimination, violence, and more.
Jecorey Arthur is a teacher, musician, and activist from the West End of Louisville, KY.
While currently a professor of music, sociology, and activism at the Historically Black College and University Simmons College of Kentucky, Arthur has served students of all ages in diverse settings that include schools, libraries, community centers, parks, prisons, detention centers and Boys & Girls Clubs. He has presented at conferences and colleges throughout America and overseas during a cultural exchange with England’s De Montfort University. He has certifications in Human Subject Research and Quality Matters (QM) Teaching Online, and a Bachelor's of Music Education and Master's of Arts in Teaching from the University of Louisville. During his tenure at Simmons College of Kentucky he has used community-based participatory action research on various projects including the Kerner Commission 2.0's Black Asset Mapping in collaboration with Kentucky State University and Universal Basic Neighborhoods (UBN) in collaboration with the University of Louisville.
Arthur is also a multidimensional musician, performing as a percussionist and vocalist at festivals like Switzerland’s Jungfrau Erzählfestival, the Big Ears Festival, Forecastle Festival, as well as the Percussive Arts Society International Convention. An endorsed artist with Salyers Percussion, Arthur is a percussion instructor at the Louisville Academy of Music and an artist roster member of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN). He has composed original music for theatre, film, television, radio, podcasts and studio albums, and participated as an artist-in-residency at New York City's 92nd Street Y. His extensive orchestral work includes soloist performances with Brooklyn’s Stereo Hideout Orchestra, as well as the New World, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Dallas, San Francisco, San Diego, Indianapolis, Nashville, Columbus, Dayton, Florida, Cincinnati, Phoenix, Richmond and Oregon Symphony Orchestras. Notably, Arthur was the first hip hop artist to perform with the Louisville Orchestra, including the world premieres of the folk opera “The Way Forth” and the rap opera “The Greatest: Muhammad Ali,” where he starred as his hometown hero.
Like Ali, Arthur’s personal adversity motivated his political advocacy. As an activist he has worked on issue-based campaigns across the United States, including arts education access, fair wages for artists, and tenant rights for low-income residents. In 2019 he became a Black Male Engagement (BMe) Genius Fellow and used his award to help open the Parkland Plaza, an outdoor green space, community venue, and natural playground in his childhood neighborhood. As a member of the American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) Foundation, Arthur writes public policy and trains organizers to support a federal reparations program. In 2020 he worked with IMAN to get Cariol's Law passed in Buffalo, NY, requiring police officers to intervene against excessive force, after Cariol Horne was fired from the Buffalo Police Department for intervening over a decade earlier. That year he also helped pass Breonna's Law in Louisville, KY, banning no knock warrants, after local police used one during a raid, killing Breonna Taylor. Arthur's work as a community organizer inspired him to run for city council in 2020, and, upon winning, made history in becoming the city's youngest legislator. Since joining Louisville Metro Council, Arthur has sponsored and passed over 100 pieces of legislation to address homelessness, poverty, discrimination, violence and more.
You can follow Arthur online at @jecoreyarthur.