Fred Ho is a composer, musician, scholar, and activist. He is the leader of the Afro Asian Music Ensemble and Monkey Orchestra. His many recordings include The Black Panther Suite. He is coeditor of Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultura Connections between African Americans and Asian Americans, Sounding Off! Music as Subversion/Resistance/Revolution, and Legacy to Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America. He was the first Asian American to receive the Duke Ellington Distinguished Artist Lifetime Achievement Award.