Matthew Morrison has written a modern classic that elegantly and meticulously illustrates how the rise of the music industry is inseparable from structures of racism and copyright. His concept of Blacksound will resonate with audiences across a wide range of disciplines for decades to come.--Anjali Vats, author of The Color of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race, and the Making of Americans Morrison's brilliantly unique, wide-ranging, and rigorously researched book brings to light how, as Europeans and Americans of many ethnicities deployed sonic blackface as part of an ongoing identity and citizenship project, the US entertainment industry's construction of Blacksound became fundamental to popular music around the world.--George E. Lewis, author of A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music Blacksound is a profound original study of the foundations of Black performance in the Americas. It is at once ethnomusicology, cultural history, and critical race theory, built on rigorous archival research and sophisticated engagement with a vast body of scholarly research. An engrossing and expansive text, Blacksound will be an indispensable addition to the study of race and African American culture.--Imani Perry, author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation