Lauren Onkey
Lauren Onkey is the Senior Director of NPR Music in Washington, DC. In this role, she leads NPR Music's team of journalists, critics, video, and podcast makers, and works with NPR's newsroom and robust Member station network to expand the impact of NPR Music and continue positioning public radio as an essential force in music.
Prior to joining NPR, she was the inaugural Dean and Chair of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Humanities Center at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio, where she created a program that provided civic engagement opportunities for students. She served as Vice President of Education and Public Programming at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum from 2008-2015, developing and managing the museum's award-winning education and community programs. She was the executive producer of the museum's Annual Music Masters series and oversaw the Rock Hall's Library and Archives.
Onkey spent fourteen years teaching literature and cultural studies at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, specializing in postcolonial literature and popular music studies. She is the author of Blackness and Transatlantic Irish Identity: Celtic Soul Brothers (Routledge 2009), an interdisciplinary study of the relationship between Irish and African-American heritage. Over the course of her career she has published many articles in literary studies, popular music studies, women's studies, and pedagogy. Onkey holds doctoral and master's degrees in English from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor's degree in English and Government from the College of William & Mary.
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One of rock's most important backup singers, Merry Clayton performs a relaxed but purposeful Tiny Desk home concert.
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Filmed in stark black and white, Ndegeocello takes us on an intense trip across her catalog. Watch the R&B auteur's contribution to Tiny Desk's Black History Month celebration.
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Mary Wilson began her career in Detroit in 1959 as a singer in what was then called the Primettes. The group went on to become The Supremes, with members Diana Ross and Florence Ballard.
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The soul legend isn't letting quarantine slow him down.
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The Boss announced Thursday that his new album, Letter To You, is out Oct. 23.
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Dylan's first album of original songs in eight years comes out June 19. Hear the bluesy "False Prophet" now. -
The second new release from Dylan in the last three weeks, "I Contain Multitudes" is a list of funny and preposterous boasts about the singer's prowess and power.
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The iconic songwriter surprised fans at midnight with a 17-minute song about the assassination of JFK.
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A new documentary doesn't radically alter what we know and love about The Band, but does unearth some fresh details. -
For our series One-Hit Wonders/Second-Best Songs, NPR Music Senior Director Lauren Onkey recommends "Out of Left Field" by Percy Sledge. He's known mostly for his 1966 hit, "When a Man Loves a Woman."
