My name is Lauron Kehrer. I’m a musicologist and ethnomusicologist studying the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality in American popular music.

I’m based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where I teach at the Irving S. Gilmore School of Music at Western Michigan University.

Research

My research focuses on the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality in American popular music, especially hip hop. I am particularly interested in musical articulations of queer and trans identities in the work of LGBTQ+ artists.

Publications

My book, Queer Voices in Hip Hop: Cultures, Communities, and Contemporary Performance reclaims queer involvement in hip hop by tracing the genre’s beginnings within Black and Latinx queer music-making practices and spaces, demonstrating that queer and trans rappers draw on Ballroom and other cultural expressions particular to queer and trans communities of color in their work in order to articulate their subject positions. I have also published articles articles on queer identity and women’s music (American Music), white rapper Macklemore’s LGBTQ activism (Journal of the Society for American Music), queer resonances in the work of Beyoncé (Popular Music and Society), intersections of race, gender, and sexuality in New Orleans bounce dance (Journal of Popular Music Studies), and queer ludonarrativity in the work of Lil Nas X (Popular Culture Studies Journal). My article, “‘Sissy Style’: Gender, Race, and Sexuality in New Orleans Bounce Dance,” was awarded the 2024 Marcia Herndon Article Prize for exceptional ethnomusicological work in gender and sexuality from the Society for Ethnomusicology, and my publication “Who Slays? Queer Resonances in Beyoncé’s Lemonade” received honorable mention for this award in 2020. Click here to visit my Humanities Commons page that features some of my publications.

Teaching

I am an Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology and Musicology at Western Michigan University where I teach courses in popular musics, global music cultures, and western art musics. Recent courses I’ve designed and taught include: Black Music in the U.S.; Hip Hop Music & Culture; Music, Gender, and Sexuality; Music of the African Diaspora; and Global Hip Hop. I also advise BA and MA student capstone projects. Click here to visit my WMU faculty page.

Photo Credit: Sarah Hill