He is currently completing Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (Harvard University Press, forthcoming 2011), and a general survey of African American history co-authored with Tera Hunter and Earl Lewis to be published by Norton. Besides Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, Kelley has authored several prize-winning books, including Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (University of North Carolina Press, 1990) Race Rebels: Culture Politics and the Black Working Class (The Free Press, 1994) Yo' Mama's DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (Beacon Press, 1997), which was selected one of the top ten books of 1998 by the Village Voice. Kelley served on the faculty at Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies, where he held the first Louis Armstrong Chair in Jazz Studies. He has written widely on jazz, hip hop, electronic music, musicians' unions and technological displacement, and social and political movements more broadly.īefore becoming Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, Robin D. In 1987, Kelley earned his PhD in History from UCLA and focused his work on social movements, politics and culture-although music remained his passion.ĭuring his tenure on the faculties of Emory University, the University of Michigan, New York University, and Columbia University, Kelley's scholarly interests shifted increasingly toward music. As a child he took a few trumpet lessons with the legendary Jimmy Owens, played French horn in junior high school, and picked up piano during his teen years in California.

Born in 1962, he spent his formative years in Harlem in a household and a city saturated with modern jazz.

Kelley never met Thelonious Monk, but he grew up with his music.

Robin dg kelley thelonious monk