Photo: Joy Bell

Photo: Joy Bell

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maureen Mahon is the author of Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll (Duke University Press, 2020), an exploration of the pivotal part African American women have played in the development of rock and roll.  Her first book, Right To Rock: The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race (Duke University Press, 2004), discusses the ways African American rock musicians used music and activism to challenge the limitations placed on black expressive culture and black identity in the 1980s and 1990s. Mahon’s articles on African-American music have appeared in academic journals and on the websites of National Public Radio and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was the Chief Academic Advisor for “Soundtrack of America,” the five-night concert series commission by filmmaker Steve McQueen that opened the inaugural season of The Shed in 2019. She teaches in the Department of Music at New York University.