Areas of Interest

  • ✦ Ethnomusicology ✦ Sustainability ✦ Environmental Studies ✦ Africana Studies ✦ Cultural Anthropology ✦ Music and Technology ✦ Material Culture ✦ Indigenous Studies ✦ Digital Humanities ✦

'Gifts from Nature', Music, gold mining and sustainability.

Current Project

Gifts from Nature is my dissertation project. It examines the connections between musical and ecological sustainability through the concept of "gift", specifically among the Akans—a Black Indigenous group located in West Africa, Jamaica, the United States, and Guyana. I focus on palmwine music and galamsey (illegal gold mining) to offer a crucial and timely response to the Anthropocene. Through ethnography and community engagement, I integrate Indigenous knowledge systems with scientific and humanistic insights to honor diverse ways of knowing and being.

Selected Publications

  • | Articles |

    “Revitalizing Ghanaian Palmwine Music for a Sustainable Environment”. Rising Voices. Society for Ethnomusicology, 2023.                 

    “Music Career and Sustainability: The Strategies of a Hiplife Musician”. Ethnomusicology Forum, 2023.

    “Towards a Sustainable Ecology with Palmwine Music and its Material Culture”. Co-author Sunu Doe. Riffs: Experimental Writing on Popular Music, 2023.              

  • | Book Chapters |

    “Between Cultural and Ecological Demise”. In Music and Sustainability, edited by Martin Ringsmut, and Michael Fuhr, University of Hildesheim Press, Germany. 2025

    “Contesting Musical Values in Ghana”. In Handbook for Economic Ethnomusicology, edited byTimothy D. Taylor and Anna Morcom. Oxford University Press. (Forthcoming)

  • | Reviews |

    Review of Working Musicians: Labor and Creativity in Film and Television, 2023. Timothy D. Taylor. Journal of Popular Music Studies. 2025

    “Honk to Harmony: An Intimate Jazz Convo”. Album Review of “Horn to Horn: The La Drivers Union Por Por Group Meet The Texas Horns”. Yearbook for Traditional Music Journal (Forthcoming)