Chicago Jazz Hero
Maggie Brown is a beloved local singer, songwriter, stage director, producer, and educator, frequent performer and warm presence in Chicago’s overall cultural scene. She’s particularly focused on addressing contemporary social issues in continuation of the legacy of her family, which has been a creative force for Black and progressive circles in Chicago and beyond for a century.
Working with public school groups including choruses or onstage (often with her sister Africa — they appear as 2Brown Sisters), Maggie takes on tough topics ranging from the history and impact of the Great Migration to the ongoing crisis in Haiti, with music that is no less upbeat for its seriousness and urgency. She’s never pedantic or rigid and seems all inclusive, equally effective collaborating in an AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) ensemble or featured in a soul group or big band.
As 2026 is the centennial year of Oscar Brown Jr., the South Side-born and raised singer-songwriter-dramatist-actor-deejay–TV show host, Maggie is out front conveying the spirit of South Side activism that her father embodies. In 2012 she produced a live concert recording with her father, We’re Alive on her own label, Magpie Records. But that spirit harkens back to the accomplishments of her grandfather, Oscar Brown Sr., a 1916 graduate of Howard University, prominent Chicago attorney, businessman, and civil rights leader. Together, the Browns represent, and Maggie and Africa personally advance, the Can/Will-Do attitude that offers hope and instills power to Americans of all backgrounds and aspirations — akin to the symbolism of the Barack Obama Center, about to open in the Brown family’s longtime neighborhood, Hyde Park.
Above and beyond standing for all that, Maggie has a personal side. “She is one of the most upbeat supportive sisters I have ever met,” says singer Margaret Murphy-Webb, executive director of the South Side Jazz Coalition and 2018 Chicago Jazz Hero. “Maggie can do spoken-word off the top of her head that makes her father smile from above. She truly is a jewel of a person.” And rightfully celebrated as a JJA Jazz Hero.
—Howard Mandel, JJA President Emeritus
