Portia K. Maultsby

Portia Katrenia Maultsby (born June 11, 1947)^[1] is an American ethnomusicologist and educator. She is a professor emerita at Indiana University Bloomington and specializes in African-American music. She founded the university's Archives of African American Music and Culture in 1991.

Maultsby was born in Orlando, Florida,^[1] to Maxie C. and Valdee Maultsby (later Maultsby-Williams),^[2][3] and grew up in the segregated American South.^[4] Her older brother was psychiatrist Maxie C. Maultsby, Jr. (1932–2016).^[2][5] She also had a twin brother, Casel Hayes Maultsby (1947–1988), a pilot.^[2][6]

Maultsby graduated from Jones High School in Orlando in 1964.^[7] She attended Mount St Scholastica College (now Benedictine College) in Atchison, Kansas, on a music scholarship,^[7] graduating in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in piano, theory, and composition.^[1] The following year, she earned a master's degree in musicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.^[1] In 1974, she was awarded a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison;^[7][8] she was the first African American to be awarded that degree in the United States.^[1]

Maultsby began lecturing at Indiana University in 1971, while still a graduate student.^[1][9] She was recruited by Dr. Herman Hudson and became the founding director of the Indiana University Soul Revue, a student ensemble dedicated to Black music.^[9][7] By 1975, she was an assistant professor in the Department of African-American Studies.^[7] In 1977 Maultsby produced a song called "Music is Just a Party" for her ensemble. This song would be selected as Billboard's top single in the First-Time-Around category.^[10] She went on to become chair of the department (1985–91), then professor in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology (from 1992).^[1]

Maultsby's specialization in African-American music spans genres, including funk, soul, rhythm and blues, and spirituals.^[9][11] She founded the university's Archives of African American Music and Culture in 1991, and served as its director from 1991 through 2013.^[9] The archives started as Maultsby's personal collection and grew to include more than 10,000 pieces of music and music-related items (including interviews, photographs, and recordings) by 2003.^[4]

Maultsby co-edited two textbooks with her Indiana University colleague Mellonee V. Burnim: African American Music: An Introduction (2006)^[12] and Issues in African American Music: Power, Gender, Race, Representation (2016).^[13] She wrote the foreword to the 2018 book Black Lives Matter and Music: Protest, Intervention, Reflection, edited by Fernando Orejuela and Stephanie Shonekan.^[14]

In 2011, Maultsby received an award from National Association for the Study and Performance of African American Music. Maultsby has also served as a consultant for museums (including serving as a senior scholar at the Smithsonian Institution in 1985) and as a researcher documentary films (including the PBS documentary series Eyes on the Prize).^[15][16] She has consulted on various different projects such as The Motown Sound, Wade in the Water, and Chicago’s Record Row: The Cradle of Rhythm and Blues.