Daphne A. Brooks is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of African American Studies, American Studies, Music, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. She is also the co-founder and co-director of Yale’s Black Sound and the Archive working group.

A scholar whose work engages with questions of race, gender, performance, and popular music culture, Brooks is the author of three books: Jeff Buckley’s Grace (2005); Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 (2006), winner of the Errol Hill Award for Outstanding Scholarship on African American Performance from the American Society for Theatre Research; and Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound (Harvard UP 2021), winner of multiple prizes including the Museum of African American History's Stone Book Award.

Brooks has written liner notes to accompany the recordings of Aretha Franklin, Tammi Terrell, Prince, and Nina Simone. Her cultural criticism has appeared widely, including in the Nation, the New York Times, and the Guardian, which after the recent death of Tina Turner published Brooks's "Tina Turner: Ten of Her Greatest Songs." Brooks is currently editing a critical anthology of essays exploring the legacies of David Bowie and Prince, drawn from a four-day international conference and concert that she curated.

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