About The Artist
Mike Ellison is an actor, music and spoken word recording artist, and an Emmy Award-winning producer. Born to parents living and working in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia before the family relocated to Reston, Virginia, where he was raised, Mike fully blossomed as an interdisciplinary artist in Detroit.
Also known as MIKE-E, his independent music projects include AFROFLOW I, AFROFLOW II and FLYTANIUM, along with popular singles released in Ethiopia and Rwanda, and collaborations with several international artists. Mike’s acting credits span film, theater and television, with recent appearances on CHICAGO PD, BMF and CHICAGO Fire.
Mike created and headlined the AFROFLOW Tour in partnership with the American Cancer Society. Utilizing music and community engagement to encourage cancer prevention and tobacco cessation among youth populations disproportionately targeted by the industry, this production enjoyed a groundbreaking US national tour that ran for seven years.
Mike holds a Communications Degree from the University of Virginia, and his father, the late pioneering journalist Bob Ellison, was the first African American president of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA).