Mike Alleyne

Mike Alleyne (Ph.D.) has served as a Full Professor in the Department of Recording Industry at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) and is also a visiting professor at the Pop Akademie in Germany.

He is the co-editor of the award-winning anthology Analyzing Recorded Music (2023), recognized by the Society for Music Theory (SMT) as an Outstanding Multi-Author Publication (https://societymusictheory.org/announcement/2023-smt-publication-awards-2023-11). Alleyne also wrote The Essential Hendrix (2020) and The Encyclopedia of Reggae (2012), and was a contributing editor of Rhythm Revolution (2015), and co-editor of Prince and Popular Music (2020).

Born in London, England, the retired professor has lectured and presented conference papers internationally, publishing numerous book chapters and articles. His journal and periodical publications include Popular Music & Society, Rock Music Studies, the Journal on the Art of Record Production, the award-winning Grove Dictionary of American Music, Popular Music History, Ethnomusicology Forum, the Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Social and Economic Studies, Small Axe, Billboard magazine, and American Music Perspectives. He is an Emeritus Editor of the online SAGE Business Case Series in Music Industry.

His book chapter contributions appear in The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar (2024), The Beatles and Humour (2023), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Music Production (2020), Rihanna: Barbados World-Gurl in Global Popular Culture (2015), Sound and Music in Film and Visual Media: An Overview (2009), Globalization, Diaspora & Caribbean Popular Culture (2005), Bob Marley: The Man & His Music (2003), and Culture and Mass Communication in the Caribbean (2001), among other works. Prof. Alleyne contributed liner notes and project advice to the groundbreaking 9-CD box set, the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap (2021).

Alleyne was also an expert witness for the estate of legendary singer Marvin Gaye in the widely publicized “Blurred Lines” copyright infringement case, decided in favor of the estate in 2015. His notable interviewees include the world-renowned Chic producer/musician/songwriter Nile Rodgers, Public Enemy rap icon Chuck D, Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood, singer/songwriters Phil Collins and Billy Ocean, and Caribbean music legend Eddy Grant.

In 2017, he co-organized the first popular music conference entirely dedicated to the life and career of the artist Prince, and the successful event took place at the University of Salford in Manchester, England. He also taught a Masterclass at Salford in 2018 on copyright infringement issues in popular music. His involvement with popular music also includes roles as a writer and publisher member of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers) and PRS (Performing Right Society).

Recent and forthcoming publications include an article on Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland album in the American Music Perspectives journal, The Routledge Handbook to the Popular Music Cover Song: Vivid Versions and Musical Subjectivities (2025), co-edited with Lori Burns for Routledge, and chapters in Popular Music Autobiographies (2024) and This is Me: Interrogating the Female Pop Star Documentary (2025), both being published by Bloomsbury.