Cheryl L. Keyes is the author of Rap Music and Street Consciousness, which received a CHOICE award for outstanding academic books in 2004. Her areas of specialty include African American music, gender, and popular music studies. Keyes has conducted extensive fieldwork on rap and hip-hop culture in Mali, West Africa, New York City, Detroit, Los Angeles, and London. Her research has been published in major journals such as Black Music Research Journal, Ethnomusicology, Folklore Forum, Journal of American Folklore, Journal of Popular Music Studies, The World of Music, and has appeared as book chapters, reference articles, and as reviews. Her recent research includes a study on the legendary New Orleans piano player, Henry “Professor Longhair” Byrd and a socio-cultural history of contemporary female jazz instrumentalists of Los Angeles. In the areas of leadership, Keyes became the first woman as well as the first African American to serve as the president of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, US Chapter (IASPM-US) from 2007-2009. She is also a former member of the Board of Directors for the Society for Ethnomusicology and the past-chair of the Faculty Executive Committee for the School of Arts and Architecture at UCLA. In addition to her teaching, research duties, and service, Keyes’ musical creative works have been performed by the Women's Jazz Orchestra of Los Angeles at noted venues such as the Hollywood Bowl and the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, where she made her debut as Musical-Artistic Director for the “Blues in the Summertime" Instrumental Women® Project’s Lady Jazz concert series. As a performer, she is a former member of trumpeter Clark Terry’s All-Girl All-Star Jazz Band, and she has recorded with New Orleans rhythm-blues pianist sensation Eddie Bo of New Orleans and with the late jazz-clarinetist-educator Alvin Batiste. Most recently, Keyes released her debut CD, Let Me Take You There (Keycan Records) in October 2008, which received an NAACP Image Award in the category of “Outstanding World Music Album.”

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