Laina Dawes is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the College of Arts and
Sciences in the Department of Music. In 2022, She received her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Columbia University, and she completed a Masters of Liberal Studies from the New School for Social Research in 2015. Born and raised in Ontario, Canada, Laina completed her undergraduate studies as a double-major in Political Science and Sociology at York University in North York, Ontario.
As a heavy metal and popular music journalist, commentator and critic, she is also the author of What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal (Bazillion Points Books, 2012; 2020). She is also on the editorial board for Meta/Metal: Exploring the Complexities of Metal Cultures a book series from Kohlhammer Verlag GmbH. Recent publications can be found in Black Metal Rainbows (PM Press, 2023), Black Punk Now (Soft Skull, 2023) and she wrote the foreword for Metallica: The $24.95 Book (Backbeat Books, 2021). As an official ballot holder for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 2016, she contributed to the 2022 Induction Ceremony book with an essay that honored inductees Judas Priest. Laina is also a popular music commentor, and has appeared in American and UK televised music documentary series.
As a lifelong heavy metal fan, her research explores how music listening and performance activities in transgressive sub-cultures complicate socially manufactured notions concerning race, gender and class. Her music journalism work can be found in various American, Canadian, and U.K print and online publications, such as The Wire, NPR, OkayPlayer, Metal Hammer, and many more.