Dr Alisha Lola Jones

Dr. Alisha Lola Jones is an associate professor of music in contemporary societies and academic convenor for approaches to research cultures in School of Arts & Humanities at the University of Cambridge in England. She is also the co-editor of the Journal of Popular Music Studies (JPMS), alongside Dr Benjamin Tausig of SUNY- Stony Brook University. Prior to arriving to the University of Cambridge, she was on faculty in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University (Bloomington). Dr. Jones’ book Flaming?: The Peculiar Theopolitics of Fire and Desire in Black Male Gospel Performance (Oxford University Press) breaks ground by analyzing the role of gospel music-making in constructing and renegotiating gender identity among black men. Dr. Jones' book has been awarded the 2021 Ruth Stone prize (SEM), Music in American Culture prize (AMS), and Philip Brett prize (AMS). She is completing three books: a gastromusicology book entitled Ultrasonic Tastemakers: Towards a Critical Gastromusicology, Sound Our Signatures: A Womanist Approach to Music Research, which sets forth anti-oppressive ways of listening to Black women, and The Black Messiah: Listening for Deliverance.Her research interests extend to global pop music, musics of the African diaspora, music and food, the music industry and the marketplace, and anti-oppressive ways of listening to black women.

As a multi-genre vocalist-scholar, Dr Jones consults museums, conservatories, seminaries, and arts organizations on curriculum, live and virtual event programming, and content development. She has worked on major productions with recording artists and leading researchers such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr for his documentaries on the Black Church and Gospel Music. For Afro-British film director Steve McQueens’s Soundtrack of America show, she worked alongside Quincy Jones the chief music advisor in a small team of leading music researchers to launch the opening of The Shed NYC. She has filmed two PBS documentaries on Marian Anderson for American Masters and American Experience and a documentary on Florence Price for the BBC. In 2023, she is slated to consult on several commissioned works, one of which is with her colleague Ashon Crawley who is featured in the New York Times as unveiling an installation on the National Mall in Washington, DC to commemorate Black gospel musicians who have succumbed to HIV/AIDS. Tthe album Requiem for the Enslaved (DECCA) by Carlos Simon for which she wrote album notes has been nominated for a 2023 Grammy Award. Other clients or partners include the Smithsonian, International African American Museum, Tribeca Film Festival, Google/YouTube.com, National African American Museum in Nashville, TN, Aspen Music Festival, London Symphony Orchestra, and the United Nations.

Dr Jones writings on African American religious music, gender and sexuality in ethnomusicological research appear in various publications. Her work has been featured in NPR, BBC, Liner Notes magazine, The Afro-American newspaper, Black Enterprise.com, HuffingtonPost.com, TheChristianCentury.com, ForHarriet.com, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Vogue. She is a contributing writer for HEED magazine, and Musiqology.com.

FAITH LEADER

Rev. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones is a third generation Pentecostal, Word of Faith preacher on both her paternal and maternal sides, who has preached and served throughout the world. She is the alumni association president of Yale Divinity School where she received her Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School and Yale Institute of Sacred Music, in an inter-denominational ministerial formation. While at Yale, she was president of the Yale Black Seminarians for two terms and Rev. John G. Magee fellow at Dwight Hall for Direct Action and Social Justice. During her Magee fellowship, she served as an inter-faith leader for undergraduates, responding to post Katrina efforts in New Orleans, LA. Jones was the recipient of the Charles S. Mersick prize in preaching.

With head and heart, Rev. Dr. Jones focuses on cultivating love and hospitality in traumatized communities. Rev. Jones does this through her intense arts training as a seasoned music minister, opera singer, producer, and ethnomusicologist. She has been characterized as a healer and translator because of the InSight she shares that is "beyond her years" and her passion for inter-cultural engagement. Rev. Jones is a spiritual advisor to ministry gifts, luminaries, young adults, dignitaries, men, women, artists, believers, seekers, and the chronically questioning.​

Rev. Jones has worked for and consulted various faith-based diversity consulting agencies, churches, and para-ministries throughout the U.S: her home church International Kingdom Church (Bowie, MD), Rev. Dr. Martha B. Jones, pastor; First Cathedral (Hartford, CT), Salter-McNeil & Associates (Chicago,IL), Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter-McNeil, CEO and Just for U Ministries (Chicago, IL), Evangelist Sandra Riley, President and CEO, Trinity United Church of Christ (Chicago, IL), Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, III, and Zoe Ministries (New York, NY), Archbishop E. Bernard and Debra Jordan, pastors. She is a member of the Prophetic Preaching Lab of Auburn Seminary.

Dr Jones is bi-continental, living between the United States and the United Kingdom with her partner in life and love Rev. Calvin Taylor Skinner of Knoxville, TN.