Mark Katz is John P. Barker Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Founding Director of the U.S. State Department hip hop cultural diplomacy program, Next Level. His five books include Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music, Build: The Power of Hip Hop Diplomacy in a Divided World, and Music and Technology: A Very Short Introduction. He is co-editor of Music, Sound, and Technology in America: A Documentary History and former editor of the Journal of the Society for American Music. In 2015 Katz was recognized by the Hip-Hop Education Center in its inaugural awards ceremony, and in 2016 he was awarded the Dent Medal by the Royal Musical Association for his contributions to musicology.