M. Nahadr

Mem Nahadr (also known as M. Nahadr and simply "M"), is a jazz vocalist best known for the performance of the song Butterfly, composed by Yoko Kanno and lyricized by Chris Mosdell for Cowboy Bebop. She is also an author, composer, and multidisciplinary video/sonic performance artist. In 2008, she presented her off-Broadway theatrical production, Madwoman: A Contemporary Opera. co-produced by James P. Nichols, and Claude E. Sloan, Jr. Nahadr, an albinistic African-American, was requested in 2004 by National Geographic Magazine to have a portrait made of her by renowned photojournalist Robert Clark, to be included in an article on genetic inheritance, ideas of diversity and acceptance of difference. Later that year, the portrait and some of Nahadr''s artistic work was included in the magazine''s "Best of the Year" collection of images. Another portrait of Nahadr travels internationally in the Positive Exposure exhibition (featuring many people with albinism and other genetic conditions) by notable fashion photographer and human rights activist Rick Guidotti. The collection was launched at the Smithsonian Institution during the Mapping of the Human Genome Celebration in 2000.