Ned Sublette

Ned Sublette is the co-author with Constance Sublette of the forthcoming The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry (Chicago Review Press, October 2015). He is the author of The Year Before the Flood (Lawrence Hill Books, 2009); The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square (Lawrence Hill Books 2008, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year in 2009 and One Book One New Orleans city-wide reading selection in 2012); and Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo (Chicago Review Press, 2004, ASCAP Deems Taylor Award). He is a frequent speaker at universities, museums, conferences, and festivals. As a musical performer, he sings the principal role of “R” in Robert Ashley’s Spanish-language opera-telenovela Vidas Perfectas, which has to date been performed in New York, London, El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, and Marfa, TX. As a singer-songwriter, his albums include Kiss You Down South (Postmambo), winner of the Premio Cubadisco; Cowboy Rumba (Palm Pictures); and Monsters from the Deep (with Lawrence Weiner) and Ships at Sea, Sailors and Shoes (with Lawrence Weiner and the Persuasions) (Excellent In the 1990s he co-founded the record label Qbadisc, which pioneered the marketing of contemporary Cuban music in the United States in the early 90s. He has produced or co-produced albums and tracks by Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Los Van Van, Maraca y Otra Visión, Viento de Agua, Adewale Ayuba, Kanda Bongo Man, and others. He has produced over 150 episodes of the Peabody Award-winning public radio program Afropop Worldwide and co-founded their Hip Deep series, which brings the work of scholars to a radio audience. In 2010-11 he was the Patrick Henry Writing Fellow at the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, and he has also been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Tulane Rockefeller Humanities Fellow, and a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library.