Michael Quintero

Boston University College of Fine Arts

Michael Birenbaum Quintero is associate professor of musicology & ethnomusicology. His work, mostly focusing on Black Colombians, examines musical constructions of blackness, state cultural policy and social movement cultural politics, neoliberal multiculturalism, affective politics, black vernacular technology, musical circulation, violence and trauma, loudness, music streaming algorithms and the affect of late capitalism, Latinx/African-American interactions in Afro-Cuban religion, and ritual soundscapes in Havana, New York City, and Ọ̀yọ̀ (Nigeria). His monograph Rites, Rights and Rhythms: A Genealogy of Musical Meaning in Colombia’s Black Pacific (Oxford UP, 2018) was awarded a 2020 Ruth Stone Prize by the Society for Ethnomusicology. He has directed a grassroots Afro-Colombian community music archive; designed cultural policy initiatives with the Colombian Ministry of Culture; performed traditional music and organized tours with Colombian musicians; and collaborated with the Afro-Colombian activist organization Proceso de Comunidades Negras and with Latinx, Black, and working-class organizers in Massachusetts.

Areas of Expertise

• Anthropology
• Cultural Studies
• History
• Music and Musicology
• Race and Ethnicity

Methodology

• Archival Methods
• Ethnographic Methods
• Qualitative Methods