Kyra Gaunt, Ph.D.

Artist, Connector, Consultant, Educator/Teacher, Performer, Writer/Editor

Innovative Black feminist scholar in digital and embodied ethnomusicology | Professor | Author | Senior TED Fellow | Singer-Songwriter Kyra D. Gaunt, Ph.D. has been a cutting-edge scholar in the field of embodied ethnomusicology for more than two decades. She currently teaches at the SUNY Albany. Her book The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop, funded by NEH and the Ford Foundation, won the 2007 Alan Merriam Prize from The Society of Ethnomusicology. The book and Kyra’s earlier publications contributed to the emergence of hip-hop music studies, black girlhood studies, and hip-hop feminism. Her current research explores the intersections of music, tech, and violence targeting Black girls shaped ecologically by the "musical Internet" from YouTube to TikTok. Check out her 2022 TED Talk How Black Girls Can Reclaim Their Voice in Music . Kyra earned her PhD from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and presently teaches at University at Albany-SUNY. In addition to scholarship, Kyra is a federally-certified expert witness in cases involving social media, especially FB. Check out her Small Thing, Big Idea episode, "How the Jump Rope Got its Rhythm," which has 7.1M+ Facebook views (that's more views the Adichie's "The Danger of a Single Story" or Byran Stevenson's TED talk). It has also been translated into 28 different languages.

I'm passionate ending grooming of girls and setting healthy boundaries as women. I'm inspired to empower emerging adults own their own greatness. I’m passionate empathy for digital black girls in musical spaces as a Ms. Foundation $25k grant recipient.

Sexist musical mansplaining is still drowning girls out of music production. When music is an instrument of violence on YouTube and other video sharing platforms, everybody but the Black girl wins.

Black Feminist Studies, Black girlhood studies, Consultant DEI, Digital media scholar, Ethnomusicology, Qualitative researcher, TikTok, Voiceover artist, Wikipedia, YouTube

In 2008, I discovered TED talks on YouTube and also started editing Wikipedia (my first edit was about The Apprentice). Since I was a boobtube baby as a kid, I loved the idea of YouTube. I started showing TED Talks in my classes. Joined the One Laptop Per Child Campaign. Bought a flip cam and made a video with my students for a campaign we created titled One Laptop Per Classroom. That same year, I hosted a TED event on our NYC campus for Pangea Day f/ Jehane Noujaim. It was attended by 50 people from the community, including the producer of the Blue Man Group. By then, I knew I had to get to TED. But how? I decided to create a profile on TED.com and noticed a tiny byline about offering fellowships. To my surprise, in 2009, I was selected to become one of 40 TED fellows in the inaugural class (note: there were others before us from Africa). Delighted to return as a senior fellow in 2020-2022.

I love little things and I love doing little things with search and qualitative analysis with lots of people. Try this: ask Siri to define thought. Does it give you thought or THOT?!?