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About the Center for Black Music Research

The Center for Black Music Research's mission is to illuminate the significant role that black music plays in world culture by ...

• serving as a nexus for all who value black music,
• promoting scholarly thought and knowledge about black music, and
• providing a safe haven for the materials and information that document the black music experience across Africa and the diaspora.

The CBMR's Library and Archives offers a comprehensive research collection of books, periodicals, sound recordings, printed music and scores, photographs, video, manuscripts, archival materials, and a wide selection of theses and dissertations on black music.

Music of the African diaspora includes works and cultural studies from the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, Europe and beyond.

Topics covered include all idioms in black music, such as blues, jazz, concert music, soul, R&B, gospel, and hip-hop, along with many genres and subgenres in popular music, world musics, and other styles, such as reggae, Afro pop, Dancehall, jazz-funk, Chicago house music, along with many more local and worldwide musical phenomena.