Kyra D. Gaunt, Ph.D.

Prize-winning author. TED Speaker. Singer-Songwriter.
Associate Professor of Abolitionist Ethnomusicology

I have been a cutting-edge scholar in the field of embodied ethnomusicology for over 20 years. My book The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop (NYU Press), funded by NEH and the Ford Foundation, which won the 2007 Alan Merriam Prize for most outstanding monograph from The Society of Ethnomusicology, along with my subsequent publications, contributed to the emergence of hip-hop music studies, black girlhood studies, and hip-hop feminism. My current research explores the intersections of AI and sound studies, music as part of  science and technology studies, and the prevention of violence against Black girls and women in music and musical content on YouTube and other video-sharing platforms.