National Museum of African American Music

About this audio guide

This guide to the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville follows the money behind the building, from a Chamber of Commerce idea in two thousand two that spent two decades as a museum without walls, chasing corporate checks toward a sixty million dollar goal. It traces how the project first belonged to Jefferson Street, once a Black owned business strip gutted by an interstate, before landing inside a downtown tower. You will hear about a fight over something as small as a front door. Stand at the Broadway entrance and look toward the Ryman before you go in.