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Culture diaspora Music

Author of Blues People Dies.

Amiri Baraka, playwright, poet, activist, and author of Blues People, died on Thursday 9th January in Newark, New Jersey. He was 79 years old. May he Rest in Peace.

BarakaAmiri Baraka and his wife, Amina, at the 2012 concert of the Cicely Tyson School of the Performing Arts Jazz Band. Photo courtesy Ken Archer

See the following report: Amiri Baraka Dies

By Ken Archer

I am an ethnomusicologist, who obtained my doctoral degree at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. My areas of interests include the musical, ritual, and celebratory traditions of the circum-Caribbean and the African Diaspora.

I worked as a lecturer at the Columbus and Marion Campuses of the Ohio State University, where I taught classes in World Music, Rock and Roll/American Popular Music, Western Art Music, and directed the OSU Steel Pan ensemble.