Sonjah Stanley Niaah

 Sonjah Stanley Niaah is a Jamaican scholar, international speaker and Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies’ Mona Campus where she was Director of the Institute of Caribbean Studies. She is a leading author, teacher and researcher on Jamaican popular culture, Black Atlantic performance geographies,  and Caribbean Cultural Studies more broadly. She holds international appointments as member of the International Scientific Committee of the Slave Route Project (UNESCO), Senior Research Associate (honorary), Rhodes University, and Advisor, International Cultural Diversity Organisation. She is the author of numerous publications among them the acclaimed Dancehall: From Slave Ship to Ghetto (2010) and editor of Dancehall: A Reader on Jamaican Music and Culture (2020). Her research and opinions have appeared in various media, among them Netflix, The Guardian, BBC, The Washington Post, NPR, The Fader and Pop Matters. In 2019 she introduced the Sound Culture book series at the UWI Press which is dedicated to publishing original work on Caribbean music.