Kenneth M. Bilby
Kenneth M. Bilby (born 1953) is an American anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, and author. He studies Caribbean culture, with a focus on the Maroons of Jamaica and the Guianas, and writes about how music and language reflect social life.
His books include Words of Our Mouth; Meditations of Our Heart: Pioneering Musicians of Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae, and Dancehall (2016); Enacting Power: The Criminalization of Obeah in the Anglophone Caribbean, 1760–2011 (2012; with Jerome S. Handler); True-Born Maroons (2005); and Caribbean Currents: Caribbean music from rumba to reggae (1995; with Peter Manuel and Michael Largey).
Bilby is the son of Kenneth W. Bilby. He earned a BA at Bard College, an MA in Anthropology and Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, and a PhD in anthropology from Johns Hopkins University. In 2004 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on Jamaican musical ethnography.
His research covers Jamaica, French Guiana, Suriname, Dominica, St. Vincent, Belize, and the Bahamas, and he has conducted fieldwork in Sierra Leone. A 1983 paper, How the "older heads" talk: a Jamaican Maroon spirit possession language and its relationship to the creoles of Suriname and Sierra Leone, provided early evidence of the Jamaican Maroon Creole ritual language.
Bilby has taught anthropology and music at Bard College, Columbia College Chicago, Regis University, the University of Colorado Boulder, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is currently a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 10:26 (CET).