Jesse Ruskin

Jesse Ruskin is a Los Angeles-based drummer, composer, ethnomusicologist, and educator. His research spans Yorùbá music of Southwestern Nigeria, popular music of the African diaspora, the ethics of audiovisual archiving, and biographical methods in ethnomusicology. In the classroom, he explores the intersections of popular music, mass media, and global culture. His courses at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music include Global Pop, Basic Principles of Ethnomusicology, and Music Around the World.

Jesse is also on the faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Otis College of Art & Design, where he has taught Popular Music, Media & Global Culture; Topics in American Music; Ways of Knowing: Story & Culture; Music of the Civil Rights Era; Gender, Sexuality & Popular Music; Music that Changed the World; Music & The Harlem Renaissance; and Capstone.

Jesse’s writing appears in the Journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Black Music Research Journal, Ethnomusicology Review, Yearbook for Traditional Music, the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as Discourses in African Musicology, a festschrift in honor of Prof. J.H.K. Nketia’s 90th birthday. He was Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board member of Ethnomusicology Review (formerly Pacific Review of Ethnomusicology) and served as Contributing Editor on the award-winning Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings, an Adam Matthew Digital/UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive Partnership.

Jesse holds a B.A. in Sociology and Music from Tufts University and a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA. He performed in Francis Awe’s Nigerian Talking Drum Ensemble from 2005-2012 and the S.K. Kakraba Band from 2012-2014. His debut record as composer/bandleader, The New Electric Fun Machine (2025), pays tribute to the soul and funk sounds of the late 60s and early 70s that first sparked his musical passion.