BLACK Music Month 2026: A Family Reunion in the Home of Black Music 

We asked our staff a simple question: What was your favorite or the most memorable part of Black Music Month?  We gave them fifteen seconds. 

The answer, almost unanimously, was Juneteenth. 

But there was another moment our staff carried with them. A quieter one. One that reminded us why this museum exists. 
 

A Tribute, A Community, A Reason We Are Here 

In the middle of Black Music Month, NMAAM opened its doors for a tribute to Tay Keith, the 29-year-old super producer whose life was lost in June. Three hundred guests filled the museum to remember him — family, friends, collaborators, fans, and members of the Black music community he helped shape. 

Romello Smith, our Artist Relations Coordinator, led the tribute in close partnership with Tay Keith’s family and businesses. It was a memorial. It was a celebration. It was a community holding itself up. 
“This is what the museum is built for,” said Sydney Watson, our Community Programs & Partnerships Manager. “Showing up as a community for the community that supported him.” 

Tay Keith will be deeply missed. His sound shaped a generation of hip-hop. His legacy lives on in the music. He will be forever remembered by the Black music community, and by everyone who walked through our doors that day to say goodbye. 
The rest of this blog celebrates the joy of Black Music Month 2026. But we begin with him, because that moment is the most honest answer to the question of what this museum is for. 
 

The Day That Carried the Month 

Friday, June 19. Community Day at the museum, then Juneteenth615 at Centennial Park. Two activations, one day, thousands of guests. Free admission and open doors forming a family reunion that happened to be staged inside a museum. 

“It was like an undercurrent of we’re all family,” said Prema Cruz, our Executive Assistant. “Even though I never went to TSU, I’m not in a sorority, I was able to recognize the tradition and the culture because it lives in so many other traditions. There’s common denominators within that. It really felt like I was at a family reunion. With my cousins.” 

That sense of recognition, of remembering things you didn’t know you knew, ran through nearly every conversation we had. 

Constance Williams, our Human Resources Generalist, captured the moment from the main entrance. “I was able to get a recording of everyone doing the line dancing from the top doorway. It looked amazing. I posted it on my social, and everyone said, I’m definitely coming next year. We were having a party. It really felt like we were all just there, like a family. Like a big family reunion or something.” 

Jessica Pfranger, our Events Manager, called it “chill-inducing.” She watched the lobby fill, completely full, as guests of every age moved in unison with the 615 Soul Line Dancers. “When people come together like that, it’s just joy.” 

Joe Racine, our Membership Coordinator, described AfricaNashville’s performance the same way. “They show up in a way that feels deeply ancestral. Like DNA in us. It’s different seeing them on a screen and then actually watching it happen in person. Everybody was still here. They literally came out of the galleries to watch.” 

Robert Cole, our Guest Experience Manager, summed it up plainly. “It was a special day, and we celebrated a very special moment in our history. All different walks of life, kids to older adults. Everyone just had a great time.” 

For our team and our guests, Juneteenth wasn’t just an event. It was the soul of the month made visible. 
 

A Vendor, A Reunion, A Quiet Star 

One name kept coming up in our staff interviews: Darlene Davidson. 

A member of our own team and Guest Experience Associate at NMAAM, Darlene set up her vendor booth on Community Day and sold out before nearly everyone else. 

“She had her jewelry, and she sold out before all the other booths,” said Amaya Slaughter, our Guest Experience Associate. “We were so proud of her. I even got some jewelry myself.” 

Three different staff members mentioned her by name. That doesn’t happen by accident. Her commitment, her helpfulness, her way with the guests. That’s what it looks like when an organization makes room for its own people to show up in full. 

“No job is too small or too big for everybody to jump in,” Darlene said when we caught up with her. “Everybody plays a role. They can pick up wherever they see an opening, jump in, and make it happen.” 
 

The Institutional Summit: When Institutions Come Together with Intention 

On Wednesday, June 17, NMAAM hosted our 2026 Institutional Summit: Healing Through Sound and Music Therapy, presented by HCA Healthcare. The room held leaders from healthcare, music therapy, education, faith, and the arts — institutions that don’t always share a table, brought together for a day of working conversation about the role of music in healing across Black communities. 

Three panels carried the day: 
(1) Healing in the Sound: The Science of Music and the Brain. 
(2) From Spirituals to Hip-Hop: Music as Healing in Black Communities. 
(3) Music in Action: Healing Youth, Schools, and Communities. 
Between them, a sound healing experience from Leandra Mayfield, a midday acoustic performance by Gabe Baker, a moment of breath with Spoonman Talley, and an artifact donation from The Blackbyrds. 

“The Summit reminded me how powerful it is when institutions come together with intention,” said Alyssa DiTuro, our Assistant Director of Partnerships. “I left the session I attended feeling inspired by the collective commitment we all share, and energized to carry the work forward.” 

That is what the Summit was built to do. Not to host a conference, but to convene the people who shape how music meets life, and to send them back to their organizations with new partners and new questions. 
 

The Marshal Family: Four Voices, One Soundtrack 

This year, NMAAM honored four artists as Black Music Month Marshals:

• PJ Morton, six-time Grammy winner, served as our Grand Marshal. His double album Saturday Night Sunday Morning premiered in the Main Concourse the night before Juneteenth in a sold-out exhibition opening that drew more than 500 guests. 
• Summer Joy, our Emerging Marshal, took the stage for First Note: Jazz in a Summer Garden, with her longtime collaborator and concert master TeAndre Holmes on the piano. 
• Rissi Palmer, our Mission Marshal, curated and moderated BEEN Country, a celebration of Black artists shaping the Country and Americana music landscape, while music fans flooded downtown Nashville for CMAFest. 
• Mýa, our Soundtrack Marshal and Soul of the 90s Honoree, closed BMM 2026 with FRONT ROW w/ Mýa, a packed-house conversation moderated by Dyana Williams, the Mother of Black Music Month. 
  

“I looked up to her when I was younger,” said Ashley Done, our Museum Educator, on Mýa’s appearance. “Just to hear how she carries herself, the way she speaks, what she does in her downtime… To meet her, take a picture, and hug her… That was something.” 

But our staff also pointed beyond the marshals. 

“Meeting George Clinton was my favorite part,” said Zach Barnes, our Director of Events. “His reaction when he saw the P-Funk flag up in the foyer area, it was priceless.” 

And Grace Burgess, our Graphic Designer, named another standout. “Pynk Beard at BEEN Country, that’s my favorite part! He brought the room from tears to laughter with just three songs! How could we forget?” 

From George Clinton to Pynk Beard. As one staffer put it: The legacy is clearly living. 

What We Learned 

Black Music Month 2026 brought thousands of guests through our doors. Hundreds were first-time visitors. We activated every weekend. We hosted three sold-out gospel brunches, a sold-out PJ Morton exhibition opening, a packed-house FRONT ROW w/ Mýa, a 300-person tribute to Tay Keith, the Institutional Summit with HCA Healthcare, and a partnership with the Nashville Predators that brought NMAAM to Centennial Park for the first time. We received generous artifact donations across the month from PJ Morton, Swamp Dogg, The Blackbyrds, and more. 

We also learned what works. 

It works when the building gets big enough to hold everyone, and small enough to feel intimate. As Darlene Davidson put it, “The museum is so big, you’ve got enough space to be as big as you want to be. If you want to be smaller, you do a little event inside Amplify. Or if you want to be huge in the lobby, you can.” 

It works when families bring their children. One of our teammates shared a note from a guest who flew in from out of town with his two daughters. He wasn’t Black. He grew up around minorities and others in Minnesota, listening to and learning Black culture. Being at NMAAM gave him context for all of it. Prince. Terry Lewis. Jimmy Jam. He got to show his daughters the roots of what he loved. That’s what we love seeing. Black culture being recognized as American culture. Because it is. 

It works when collaboration is the theme. “Collaboration and community,” said Daysha Detherage, our Digital Registrar, when asked to name a single takeaway. “Teamwork. People coming out to support Black Music Month, having a blast, doing the Cupid shuffle.” 

And it works when an organization shows up in its full body. For joy. For celebration. For mourning. For the institutions that need a convening space. For the community that built this music and the community that carries it forward. As Dr. Dexter D. Evans, Deputy Director of Strategy & Advancement, reflected, “The Institutional Summit was completely aligned with who we are and what we have the capability to build as an organization. Full-bodied. The Marshal structure honored four different artists in four different roles. And BEEN Country– the truth of what Black people have contributed to the American soundtrack, what it means to be a member of this community, the strong representation of artists that are rising and those that are legacy. That’s the work.” 

The Soundtrack Continues 

Black Music Month 2026 was the most ambitious season in NMAAM’s history. It was also, by every metric our staff named, the best one. 

Five years into our doors being open. Two-hundred-fifty years into the founding of this country. Forty-seven years since June was first recognized as Black Music Month. 

We held space for celebration and for grief. For legacy and for emergence. For four marshals and for a 29-year-old producer whose music will outlive us all. For institutions that came together with intention. 

The soundtrack continues.

We will see you in the building. 

 

Visit nmaam.org/membership to become a member. 

Follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook to relive Black Music Month 2026. 

Plan your visit at nmaam.org. We are at 510 Broadway in downtown Nashville. aam.org | @theNMAAM