Jason Buchea is an ethnomusicologist with years of experience writing, teaching, recording, directing and performing in various corners of the music industry. Originally a product of the Southern California punk scene, Jason received a scholarship from the University of Hartford (Hartford, CT) to study jazz under the tutelage of reputed saxophonist and pedagogue Jackie McLean. He would go on to spend years as a gigging musician, and was active in the world of hip-hop, performing with the critically-acclaimed genre-benders Toca and as a featured soloist for legendary rapper Slick Rick. Jason spent ten years as musical director of the African Dance Ensemble at Irvine Valley College (Irvine, California) and several summers teaching at the National Guitar Workshop (1999–2006) in New Milford, Connecticut.

In 2008, he studied drumming in Senegal, West Africa, beginning an extensive collaboration with percussionist Massamba Diop, a virtuoso of the tama (a Senegalese talking drum), known for his role as the backbone of the Oscar-winning score for Marvel’s Black Panther. Jason worked closely with Massamba, Disney Concerts, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic to bring a live-to-picture version of Black Panther to the stage. Since its debut at the Hollywood Bowl in 2021, Black Panther In Concert has been performed worldwide by top flight orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, DC); and at world-class venues including Taiwan’s National Concert Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall, and the Sydney Opera House.

Jason’s work aims to produce a history of the Senegalese tama, and has been supported by research grants from the Department of Musicology, Office of International Affairs, and the West African Research Association. His current dissertation project, "Performing Wakanda," draws on his own experiences with Black Panther In Concert. Its intention is to document the rising genre of “film concerts” and examine current issues of representation (financial and artistic) in cross-cultural collaborations like Black Panther, where there is extensive cultural borrowing. He argues that ethnomusicologists, with their diverse skill sets and understanding of music in cultural context, are ideally positioned to responsibly mediate such exchanges.

As a graduate teaching associate at Ohio State, Jason has taught the History of Rock 'n’ Roll and World Music Cultures courses, and has directed the Ohio State Steel Pan Ensemble. He is currently director of the African Drumming Ensemble.