Melissa A. Weber

Melissa A. Weber is a researcher, historian, writer, and educator whose areas of interest and expertise include the music and culture of her native New Orleans, 20th century Black American popular music, and archives.

She serves as curator of the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, a unit of Tulane University Special Collections.

Weber's writing can be found in a number of music journalism sources, and she has presented papers at conferences for the American Musicological Society, International Association for the Study of Popular Music, National Council for Black Studies, Society for Ethnomusicology, Dayton Funk Symposium at University of Dayton, and the Pop Conference, among others.

She also works with community radio WWOZ FM New Orleans, where she has hosted "Soul Power with Soul Sister" for over 25 years, featuring music from her personal vinyl collection that she's collected since she was a child. As a live DJ artist, under the moniker DJ Soul Sister, she has performed with everyone from Questlove to George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, and is the first DJ to receive a prestigious Big Easy Entertainment Award, which she won twice. She's also performed everywhere from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Essence Music Festival, BUKU Music & Art Project, Jam Cruise, Boiler Room, and Electric Forest.