Ned Sublette, an adjunct instructor in the Department of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies, will be traveling to Angola and Haiti starting this summer to report on how indigenous religions are reflected in music, thanks to a fellowship he received from the University of Southern California 鈥� Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Sublette will receive $20,000, the highest stipend awarded for the , which annually plucks seven journalists to report on the impact of religion around the world.
鈥淭he kind of work I鈥檓 doing just isn鈥檛 possible without this kind of support,鈥� says Sublette, who started teaching at the college this semester. 鈥淭his is going to enable me to revolutionize my knowledge of these subjects I鈥檝e been studying with such interest.鈥�
A former Guggenheim Fellow, Sublette is a decorated musician and scholar who says he experiences life through his ears. 鈥淚鈥檝e always been a musical person. I organize my understanding of society, history and culture around things I learned from music.鈥�
He has cofounded a music label, written three books, secured many prominent fellowships, studied conservatory composition and classic guitar, and produced journalistic pieces for a number of media outlets, including more than 100 radio documentaries on music from the African diaspora for Public Radio International.
The research he is doing for the fellowship will culminate in several radio documentaries as well as some print and Web media.
Sublette鈥檚 numerous musical influences led him to pioneer his own style of 鈥渃owboy rumba鈥� 鈥� Afro-Caribbean music fused with country and western. During a career in which he has worked with a prominent and diverse roster of artists, he reached his pop culture pinnacle in 2006 when country music icon Willie Nelson covered one of Sublette鈥檚 songs 鈥� 鈥淐owboys are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other,鈥漺hich enjoyed success on the heels of the Oscar-winning movie Brokeback Mountain.
He is currently singing the lead role in the stage production Vidas Perfectas 鈥� a Spanish-language version of the 1980s television opera Perfect Lives 鈥� and is preparing to release an album he recorded in New Orleans called Kiss You Down South.
This semester, he is teaching a class at the college about the music of Puerto Rican people. 鈥淚鈥檓 delighted to be able to teach this class here because there aren鈥檛 a lot of universities that would carry a course like this,鈥� he states.
