Rashidi Omari is the Performing Arts Director & Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company (DAYPC) Co-Director at Destiny Arts Center. He teaches dance and spoken word at Destiny’s mainsite and in school and community spaces throughout the Bay Area, and presents on Destiny’s Creative Youth Development model around the country and around the world. An Oakland original, Rashidi has been with Destiny in various roles since 2003, became the Co-Artistic Director of the DAYPC in 2010, and Director in 2020. Rashidi knows that creative exploration and expression are integral components of culture and society. He believes that collaborative arts practices help nurture confidence, connection and cooperation which in turn helps to foster transformative social change. Rashidi has been dancing since the age of three and has been performing locally, nationally and internationally since 1993. He has performed as a dancer and M.C. with Unidentified, Company of Prophets, Loco Bloco, Starchild Entertainment, Unsmokables, Ashe West Dance Company, Liberation Dance Theater Company, and Kiandanda Dance Theater Company, to name a few. Rashidi can’t stop and won’t stop creating music and performance material as an artist. Rashidi’s love and breadth of knowledge of hip hop and performance comes from his experience growing up before and during what is referred to as the “Golden Era” of hip hop, and being inspired by great performers like Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Prince and Sammy Davis Jr.