The African American Folklorist Newspaper

08/14/2025

08/05/2025

Joe Johnson Lecture on Black banjo history! https://www.loc.gov/item/event-417516/black-banjo-bodylands-co-constructions-of-a-musical-instrument/2025-08-28/?loclr=fbafc

Join us on August 28th for a lecture titled "Black Banjo Bodylands: (Co-)Constructions of a Musical Instrument" with Joe Zavaan Johnson. Johnson’s presentation will theorize the banjo as a Black diasporic site of ritual, memory, and ancestral resistance. Johnson is a multi-instrumentalist, arts educator, and Black music researcher, who is a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University-Bloomington. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Click the link above to register and for more information.

This lecture is presented as part of the American Folklife Center's 2025 Benjamin A. Botkin Lecture Series.

07/22/2025

07/05/2025

We are still taking submissions for this Special Issue!

Call for Submissions:
Special Issue — Honoring Black Ethnomusicology

The African American Folklorist Magazine is proud to announce a special June issue dedicated to Black Ethnomusicology — a vibrant and essential field shaped by the voices, experiences, and scholarship of Black cultural bearers, tradition keepers, and academics past and present.

This issue will honor the legacy and ongoing work of Black ethnomusicologists who have preserved, studied, and interpreted Black musical traditions from within and beyond the academy. We seek to highlight the intellectual, creative, and community-based contributions that have shaped the discipline and challenged dominant narratives in musicology, folklore, and cultural studies.

We invite submissions that explore the field’s origins, current expressions, and future possibilities. Contributions may include (but are not limited to):

Profiles or tributes to trailblazing Black ethnomusicologists

Essays reflecting on the state and role of Black ethnomusicology

Community-centered ethnographic work and field reports

Artist-scholars and practitioner voices bridging performance and research

Analyses of Black musical traditions through an ethnomusicological lens

Visual, audio, or multimedia pieces interpreting Black soundscapes

Reviews of books, albums, or documentaries relevant to the field

We welcome submissions from community scholars, students, academics, tradition bearers, and artist-researchers alike.

Deadline for submissions: September 14th, 2025
Please send pitches, full submissions, or inquiries to:
[email protected]

Join us in celebrating and uplifting the work of Black ethnomusicologists who continue to carve paths of inquiry, resistance, and cultural preservation through sound.

05/28/2025

Call for Submissions:
Special Issue — Honoring Black Ethnomusicology

The African American Folklorist Magazine is proud to announce a special June issue dedicated to Black Ethnomusicology — a vibrant and essential field shaped by the voices, experiences, and scholarship of Black cultural bearers, tradition keepers, and academics past and present.

This issue will honor the legacy and ongoing work of Black ethnomusicologists who have preserved, studied, and interpreted Black musical traditions from within and beyond the academy. We seek to highlight the intellectual, creative, and community-based contributions that have shaped the discipline and challenged dominant narratives in musicology, folklore, and cultural studies.

We invite submissions that explore the field’s origins, current expressions, and future possibilities. Contributions may include (but are not limited to):

Profiles or tributes to trailblazing Black ethnomusicologists

Essays reflecting on the state and role of Black ethnomusicology

Community-centered ethnographic work and field reports

Artist-scholars and practitioner voices bridging performance and research

Analyses of Black musical traditions through an ethnomusicological lens

Visual, audio, or multimedia pieces interpreting Black soundscapes

Reviews of books, albums, or documentaries relevant to the field

We welcome submissions from community scholars, students, academics, tradition bearers, and artist-researchers alike.

Deadline for submissions: September 14th, 2025
Please send pitches, full submissions, or inquiries to:
[email protected]

Join us in celebrating and uplifting the work of Black ethnomusicologists who continue to carve paths of inquiry, resistance, and cultural preservation through sound.

05/24/2025

Hot off the presses great folk!!! Will be ready for purchase in a few days!!

05/23/2025

05/16/2025

Join me Sunday evening, May 18th at 9 pm CST as I will be joined by Langston Collin Wilkins and Elisha Renee to discuss the film Sinners, Blues People, Storytelling, and Cultural Reckoning>

We’re breaking down how the film tells a deeper story about Black American folklife, Blues culture, and the enduring legacy of Blues People. This time, we’re not just exploring themes; we’re getting into the characters, the plot, and the ways they reveal the real-life struggle between tradition and transformatio
LIVE ON the YOUTUBE channel!

02/18/2025

There are more tickets available, and the date is coming up quickly!!

Get yours!!

Join our leaders in Indigenous and tribal conditions and reclamations inform participants how to connect and reconnect families to Ancestry.

02/11/2025

02/08/2025

Great News!

Come on in!! We are OPEN today from 10am- 2pm!!!