Akim Funk Buddha

Hip Hop • Rhymes • Body Percussion

USA

About Akim Funk Buddha

Urban-legendary Hip Hop performer, dancer, and educator Akim (Funk Buddha) Ndlovu stands as a rare force in contemporary performance art—an artist whose work dissolves borders between cultures, disciplines, and traditions. He is one of only five American artists selected for the prestigious U.S.–Japan Creative Artists’ Program, a three-month cultural residency awarded by the U.S.–Japan Friendship Commission in collaboration with the National Endowment for the Arts.

From the streets of Bali to Carnegie Hall, from meditative throat singing to high-energy Hip Hop rhymes, Akim Funk Buddha creates borderless performance art, fusing sounds and movements. Rhyming, beat-boxing, mouth and body percussion, story-telling, break-dancing, Mongolian throat-singing, Indonesian monkey chants, body-balancing, martial arts, tap and circus arts are seamlessly blended to create distinctly spiritual yet urban sonic and visual compositions.
Beyond the stage, Akim has contributed to film as the specialized casting agent for dancers in Once Again, directed by Boaz Yakin, which won the Audience Award at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Deeply committed to education and social impact, Akim is an advocate for alternative learning methodologies. He has developed innovative approaches that integrate movement and sound to support children with learning differences. At the heart of his work lies a powerful belief: that through music, rhythm, and performance, fear can dissolve, ignorance can be challenged, and the world can move—step by step—closer together.

A part of the Balispirit Festival extended family, this is Akim’s fourth time (or so), over the last 17 years, that he has MC’s and performed on the Balispirit Festival main stage. He is not in Bali leading the FIND YOUR GROOVE BALI retreat, which he plans to hold each year.

See their schedule, here.