Africanfuturist composer and human-centered AI researcher working across affective computing, biofeedback, computer music, and collaborative performance.

Justin Adebayo Kerobo is a Nigerian-American composer, saxophonist, computer musician, and human-centered artificial intelligence researcher whose work places Africanfuturism, and its conversation with broader Afrofuturist thought, at the center of research and creative practice in AI and music. He approaches artificial intelligence not as a culturally neutral compositional tool, but as a site where questions of agency, embodiment, affect, and possible African and Black futures can be sounded and negotiated. Across scholarship, software development, and performance, Kerobo investigates how emerging musical technologies might support more culturally grounded forms of creativity, collaboration, and technological imagination. 

Kerobo’s research examines the affective and physiological dimensions of human–AI musical collaboration. His doctoral project at Virginia Tech integrates an AI collaborator into a musical ensemble, using physiological biofeedback and affective states to influence group aesthetics and control. Situated at the intersection of music, machine learning, human–computer interaction, industrial and systems engineering, and biological psychology, the project asks how real-time human signals can help shape collaborative musical decision-making. Related research addresses affective computing in musical collaboration, real-time emotion classification, physiologically enhanced emotional MIDI, symbolic music generation, and psychophysiological synchrony among performers and audiences. 

His sustained engagement with Africanfuturism emerged prominently in his master’s thesis, Sounding Africanfuturism: Compositional Influence from Artificial Intelligence and Aesthetic Discernment for Biological Guide to the Stars – Binti. The project brings together AI augmentation, computer-aided composition, and speculative fiction to reconsider relationships between humans and synthetic systems and to reclaim agency within technological futures. In Kerobo’s practice, Africanfuturism and Afrofuturism operate as both aesthetic and critical methods: they guide how he composes, how he evaluates AI-assisted creative processes and how he imagines musical futures actively shaped by African and diasporic perspectives. 

As a creative practitioner, Kerobo composes electroacoustic, interactive, and telematic music, frequently for geographically distributed laptop ensembles. His works include CramRadio; Interstellar, commissioned by the Alexandria, Virginia, Office of the Arts; Territorio Prismatico; 8-Bit Petal; and Transcontinental Grapevine, a collaboratively created performance that connects musicians in Blacksburg, Virginia, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. His creative toolkit includes Pd-L2Ork and L2Ork Tweeter, Pure Data, Max/MSP, Max for Live, Jitter, SuperCollider, Ableton Live, and related open-source and commercial platforms. These technologies become environments for exploring distributed authorship, sound synthesis, creative coding, audiovisual interaction, and new relationships between human and computational performers. 

Kerobo’s teaching connects technical fluency with experimental and interdisciplinary creative practice. At Virginia Tech, he designed and taught Digital Sound Manipulation, guiding students through digital recording, editing, synthesis, live processing, visual and text-based programming, and self-directed multimedia projects. He has also developed wave physics and music modules in Pd-L2Ork for K–12 STEM outreach and contributed to research and educational activities surrounding the Linux Laptop Orchestra and WebPdL2Ork. Beyond the classroom, Kerobo has held leadership roles in Virginia Tech’s Center for Human-Computer Interaction, including serving as president of its Student Council. His recognitions include the 2026 Virginia Social Science Association Best Graduate Student Paper Award and an ICAT Student SEAD Grant.

Publications and Papers

Conference Proceedings

• J. Kerobo, “Computer Music as a Dispositif: The Compositional Influence of the Dispositif on Electro-Acoustic Works,” Wayne State University, 2022, Detroit, Michigan.
  • J. Kerobo, “A Wider Lens: Positing George Russell’s Conception of Mode in a World Music Theory” Theorizing African American Music, Society for Music Theory, Case Western Reserve University, 2022, Cleveland, Ohio.
  • J. Kerobo, I. Bukvic, “Exploring the Intersection of Affect and Musical Engagement to Define Affective Computing in Musical Collaboration,” Psychology and Music – Interdisciplinary Encounters (PAM-IE 2024), 2024, Zagreb, Croatia.
  • J. Kerobo, I. Bukvic, “Real-Time Human Classified Emotional MIDI Dataset Integration for Symbolic Music Generation,” ICMLA 2024, 2024, Miami, Florida.
  • I. Bukvic, *W. Furgerson, J. Kerobo, B. Davis, “Introducing WebPdL2Ork,” International Conference on Auditory Displays (ICAD), 2025, Coimbra, Portugal.
  • W. Furgerson, I. Bukvic, J. Kerobo, B. Davis, “WebPdL2Ork: Bringing the Linux Laptop Orchestra to the Browser,” Linux Audio Conference, 2025, Lyon, France.
  • I. Bukvic, W. Furgerson, B. Davis, J. Kerobo, “15 Years of L2Orkin’ Around with Pd-L2Ork,” PdMaxCon25, 2025, Urbana, Illinois.
  • Kerobo, J.A., & Friedman, B.H. (2026, March). Exploring psychophysiological synchrony between performers and audience during live musical performances [Paper presentation]. Virginia Social Science Association 99th Annual Meeting, Lexington, VA, United States.
  • Kerobo, J.A., & Friedman, B.H. (in press). Dynamic calibration and validation of multiparametric biosensors for real-time affective mapping [abstract]. Psychophysiology 63(S1).

Book Chapters

• J. Kerobo, I. Bukvic, “Physiologically-Enhanced Emotional MIDI: Integrating Biometric Feedback with Symbolic Music Generation,” Recent Advances in Deep Learning Applications, 2026, [in-review].

Compositions

• Os and 1s Drifiting Apart – live telematic work for a laptop orchestra using L2Ork Tweeter software. Retrieved from YouTu.be/pTrzTmbpXpY?si=Ag_uaKDphgqJdO8_ 2026. 
• CramRadio – live telematic work for a laptop orchestra using L2Ork Tweeter software. 2025.
• Interstellar – live telematic work for a laptop orchestra using L2Ork Tweeter software, commissioned by the Alexandria, VA Office of the Arts. Involves projection mapping by Prof. Thomas Tucker. Retrieved from YouTu.be/c1O-3g2tkoQ?si=QYPkT3IaVoZAySn7. 2024.
• Territorio Prismatico – live telematic work for a laptop orchestra using L2Ork Tweeter. Retrieved from YouTu.be/6oVbAWTlp-E?si=KUz6b2437q0IZ-hH. 2023.
• 8-Bit Petal – live telematic work for a laptop orchestra using L2Ork Tweeter software. Retrieved from YouTube.com/watch?v=hDMiE2OkGNA. 2023.
• Transcontinental Grapevine – interactive work for the Linux Laptop Orchestra’s (L2Ork) L2Ork Tweeter platform that makes the work's strict EDM timing possible despite two groups of performers (total of 11) being over 5,000 miles apart (Blacksburg, VA, USA, and Buenos Aires, Argentina). A theme and variations based on the opening from Lane 8's "Grapevine" feat. Elderbrook. All the content is crowdsourced, or co-created by 11 participants, including instruments. Retrieved from YouTu.be/hj6yryE1jf4?si=bQeeDUG9yStDchXF. 2022.