Kenneth M. Bilby (born 1953)[1] is an American anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, and author.
His published works include the books Words of Our Mouth, Meditations of Our Heart: Pioneering Musicians of Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae, and Dancehall (2016), Enacting Power: The Criminalization of Obeah in the Anglophone Caribbean, 1760–2011 (2012; with Jerome S. Handler), True-Born Maroons (2005), and Caribbean currents: Caribbean music from rumba to reggae (1995; with Peter Manuel and Michael Largey).
[1] He was a 2004 recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for his work in Jamaican musical ethnography.
He has published work on places including Jamaica, French Guiana, Suriname, Dominica, St. Vincent, Belize, and the Bahamas.
[3] His 1983 paper How the "older heads" talk: a Jamaican Maroon spirit possession language and its relationship to the creoles of Suriname and Sierra Leone was the first scholarly work to provide evidence of the Jamaican Maroon Creole ritual language.