Daphne A. Brooks: A Life in Sound and Scholarship
Born and raised in the vibrant cultural landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area, and currently based in New Haven, CT, Daphne A. Brooks is a scholar, author, and music critic whose work bridges the worlds of academia and pop culture. She earned her BA in English from UC Berkeley and her PhD in English from UCLA and is the recipient of multiple honors and awards including an NYPL Cullman Center Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, a Harvard DuBois Institute Fellowship and a University of California Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Her Gen X “lower frequencies” education began in childhood during long, good hangs in the Bay Area’s beloved Tower Records and continued on during crate-digging expeditions at places like Berkeley’s Amoeba Records and Rasputin’s, and LA’s Rhino Records.
Brooks is the past recipient of numerous honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a New York Public Library Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Fellowship, an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellowship, a Schomburg Research Center Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Harvard University DuBois Institute Fellowship, and a Mellon Fellowship.
BOOKS
Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 (Duke UP)
Earned The Errol Hill Award for Outstanding Scholarship on African American Performance for 2006 from ASTR (American Society for Theatre Research)
Jeff Buckley’s Grace (Continuum, 2005)
Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound (Harvard UP, 2021)
Winner of 11 book awards and prizes including the 2022 Before Columbus Book Award, the 2022 Ralph Gleason Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Book Award and the 2021 Museum of African American History Stone Book Award
Forthcoming from FSG:
Rhapsody and Ruin: Porgy and Bess and the Story of America
I Am the Genre: History, Memory Politics, Beyonce and the Art of Pop Reckoning
MUSIC JOURNALISM
Brooks has published public-facing articles in numerous press outlets including: The New York Times, The Nation, The Guardian, Pitchfork, Artforum, Slate, Oxford American Magazine, NPR.org, The Los Angeles Review of Books.
“Only Three Black Women Have Won the Top Award. Is Beyonce Next?,” New York Times, January 29, 2025
“Breaking Through Rock Journalism’s Boys’ Club,” an interview with Althea Legaspi, Rolling Stone Magazine, October 23, 2023
‘The architect of Black Gen X sonic feeling and eloquence’: D’Angelo’s 10 greatest tracks,” The Guardian, October 15, 2025
“Tina Turner: Ten of Her Greatest Songs,” The Guardian, May 24, 2023
“Beyonce’s Renaissance is the #1 Album of 2022,” In Conversation with Danyel Smith and Ann Powers, NPR.com, December 2022
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/12/1141591672/beyonce-renaissance-best-album-of-2022
“The Vitality of Black Criticism,” Roundtable Conversation with Greg Tate, Thulani Davis, Danyel Smith and Wesley Morris, The New York Times, January 7, 2022
“Forever on Duty: Remembering Greg Tate, the G.O.A.T.,” Book Forum, December 14, 2021
https://www.bookforum.com/culture/greg-tate-1957-2021-24752
“Thulani Davis and the Secret History of Women Writing Album Liner Notes,” The New York Times, March 12, 2021
"'Everything I Wanted': Black Women Listeners and the High Fidelity Culture of Taste-Making,” Harvard University Press Blog, April 7, 2021
https://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2021/04/everything-i-wanted.html
“Why Radiohead Is the Blackest White Band of Our Times,” The Guardian October 2, 2020
“One Hundred Years Ago, ‘Crazy Blues’ Sparked A Revolution for Black Women Fans,” The New York Times August 10, 2020
“‘Drag ‘Em’: How Movement Shaped the Music of Mary Lou Williams,” NPR.Org, September 2019
“Diana Ross’s Greatest Songs—Ranked,” The Guardian, June 18, 2020
Contributing writer, “The Zora Music Canon: The 100 Most Iconic Albums by African American Women,” Medium.Zora.com, June 15, 2020
“Toni Morrison and the Music of Black Life,” Pitchfork.com, August 2019
“At ‘Black Woodstock,’ An All-Star Lineup Delivered Joy and Renewal to 300,000,” The New York Times, August 18, 2019
“Drenched in Glory: How Aretha Gave Voice to Embattled Black Women—And Transformed a Nation,” The Guardian.com, August 2018
“Aretha’s Bridge,” NPR Music.com, August 2018
“Betty Davis, Grace Jones and the Art of Anti-Confessional Cinema,” Los Angeles Review of Books, July 2018
“Girl Groups: TLC, The Pointer Sisters, The Supremes,” Pitchfork.com special issue, June 2018
“Tina Turner: The Making of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Revolutionary,” The Guardian.com, March 2018
“It’s After the End of the World,” Introduction to Pitchfork.com special issue: Nina Simone, May 2017
“On Nina Simone’s ‘Why? (The King of Love is Dead)’ and ‘22nd Century’,” Pitchfork.com special issue: Nina Simone, May 2017
“See My Face From the Other Side: Freedom is a Blues Woman’s Prerogative,” Oxford American Magazine, Southern Music Issue 2016, pp. 130-141.
“Mama’s Gun: Tarrying with Erykah Badu in the Y2K Era,” Pitchfork.com, September 2016
“Review of Prince, Controversy,” Pitchfork.com, April 2016
“The Missing Blacknuss in Nina,” Slate.com, April 2016
“How #Blacklivesmatter Started a Musical Revolution,” The Guardian.com, March 13, 2016
“‘Ain’t Got No, I Got Life: #Oscarssowhite & The Problem of Women Musicians on Film,” The Los Angeles Review of Books, Feb. 2016 LARB.com
Invited Contributing Writer for The Nation Magazine, Slate.com, slavetotheism.com
“‘I’m Every Woman’: Whitney Houston, Voice of the Post-Civil Rights Era,” The Nation.com, February 2012
“Tainted Love: Amy Winehouse & the (Black) Art of Appropriation,” The Nation, September 29, 2008. Reprint in eds. Gerald Early and Randall Kennedy, Best African American Essays 2010 (New York: Random House, 2011)
“’What More Do You Want From Me?’: Making Sense Out of Al’s Green Eggs and Ham,” slavetotheism.com, 2008 summer edition.
“Suga Mama Politicized: Beyonce’s B-Day,” The Nation.com, December 18, 2006. Reprint in eds. Robert Christgau and Daphne Carr, Best Music Writing 2007 (New York: Da Capo Books, 2007): 27-35
SELECT RACE, GENDER AND SOUND SCHOLARSHIP
“A Hunger for Heroes: Remembering Greg Tate’s Flyboy in the Buttermilk,” Orion Journal, (Fall 2025)
“The Supremes Face America,” Magnum America (London: Thames Hudson, 2024)
“Face the Music,” ed. Hilton Als, God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin” (David Zwirner Gallery publication, 2023)
“Why I Read What I Read: On the Exigencies of Sonic Reading Practices,” PMLA Vol. 138 (1) (2023): 178-181.
“At the Bench: The Secret History of Women Composers at Work,” Foreword, ed. Terri Lyne Carrington, New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers (Boston, MA: Berklee Press, 2022)
“‘Loud Dreaming’ with Toni Morrison and Cecile McLorin Salvant,” Eds. Marna Seltzer and Scott Burnham, Ways of Hearing: Reflections on Music in 26 Pieces (Princeton UP, 2021)
“‘A Woman Is A Sometime Thing’: (Re)Covering Black Womanhood in Porgy and Bess,” Daedalus 150:1 (Winter 2021): 98—117
“Sister, Can You Line It Out?: Zora Neale Hurston & the Sound of Angular Black Womanhood,” Amerikastudien/American Studies 55 (4) 2011
“Nina Simone’s Triple Play,” Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters 34.1 Winter 2011
“This Voice Which Is Not One: Amy Winehouse Sings the Ballad of Sonic Blue(s)face Culture,” Women and Performance: a journal of feminist theory, March 2010
“‘Once More with Feeling’: Popular Music Studies in the New Millennium,” Journal of Popular Music Studies 22(1): 98-106. Special Issue: “The State of the Field,” guest ed. Steve Waksman (2010)
“1920, August 10: Mamie Smith becomes the first black woman to make a phonograph record: A New Voice of the Blues,” A New Literary History of America, eds. Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2009), 545-550
“The Write to Rock: Racial Mythologies, Feminist Theory, and the Pleasures of Rock Music Criticism,” Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture Vol. 12 (2008): 54-62
“‘All That You Can't Leave Behind’: Surrogation & Black Female Soul Singing in the Age of Catastrophe,” Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 8.1 (2008). Reprint in Meridians 20th Anniversary Reader, Volume 19 Supplement (2020)
LINER NOTES, PROGRAM ESSAYS, MUSEUM CATALOGUE ESSAYS
“Mary J. Blige,” Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2024 Induction Ceremonies Essay, October 2024
“Steal Away,” exhibit catalogue essay for Nikita Gale, End of Subject, 52 Walker Gallery, New York City, NY, Fall 2022
“This Is How We Do It,” exhibit catalogue essay for Caldonia: Concert and Film Posters from the Collection of Ralph DeLuca, Salon 94 Gallery, New York City, NY, March 2022
“Mood Revolution: Listening to Nina Simone on the Verge,” Liner Notes for Little Girl Blue (Omnivore Records Reissue, July 2021)
“Footprints through Bethlehem: The Nina Simone and Friends Project,” Liner Notes for Nina Simone and Friends (Omnivore Records Reissue, July 2021)
“Everybody Still Wants to Fly,” Liner Notes for Prince, Sign O’ The Times Super Deluxe Edition (Warner Brothers, September 2020)
“Black Sound & the Archive: Objects from the Gilmore Music Library Collection,” display cards, Spring 2018 display case exhibition, Yale University Irving S. Gilmore Music Library
“Inside Out with Alicia Hall Moran,” The Whitney Museum 2012 Biennial Exhibit Catalogue, March 2012
“Anatomy of Soul: Aretha Franklin’s Revolutionary Body of Work,” The 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame American Masters Concert Celebration Program, October 2011
“Bold Soul Ingenue,” Liner Notes for Aretha Franklin, the Columbia Years Box Set (Sony/Columbia Records, March 2011).
“Come On and See Me,” Liner Notes for The Complete Tammi Terrell (Universal Music, October 2010)
YALE BLACK SOUND IN THE ARCHIVE WORKING GROUP
Brooks is the co-founder and director of Yale University’s Black Sound & the Archive Working Group, a 320 York Humanities Initiative.
For more info on the Yale Black Sound and the Archive Working Group go to: https://blacksound.yale.edu/.