Museum / Hall of FameNashville, TN
National Museum of African American Music
Celebrating the influence of African American music on American culture and sound.
Why it matters
It connects the sounds that shaped American music to the artists, communities, and history behind them.
The story
American music doesn't make sense without African American music.
Blues, jazz, gospel, R&B, soul, funk, hip-hop, rock and roll, and countless sounds in between grew from Black artists and communities whose influence reaches far beyond any single genre. The National Museum of African American Music brings those threads together, showing how generations of musicians shaped not only the American soundtrack, but music heard around the world.
Opened in downtown Nashville in 2021, the museum tells that story through artifacts, recordings, interactive exhibits, and the people behind the music. Its location is meaningful, too. In a city known worldwide as Music City, NMAAM broadens the story of what that name represents.
This isn't simply a museum about individual artists or famous records. It’s about connection—how gospel fed soul, blues helped give birth to rock and roll, and those traditions continued evolving into the music we hear today.
For anyone exploring Nashville's music history, it fills in an essential part of the map.
While you’re here
Located within 5th & Broad; Paid parking available
Keep exploring Nashville
