Keenan McRae

Keenan McRae is a New Orleans-based audio engineer who brings decades of hands-on industry experience to the classroom. He attended Loyola University New Orleans and built his career at New Orleans Music Exchange, where he worked in audio installations, engineering, and sales. He has done live sound for national touring acts including Kymani Marley, Thievery Corporation, and The Wailers, as well as major festivals such as Jazz Fest and French Quarter Fest. He has also held production management roles at two of New Orleans' most storied music venues, the Maple Leaf Bar and Kermit's Mother-in-Law Lounge.

Beyond front-of-house, McRae is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist who has performed live on guitar, bass, and drums with artists including Big Freedia, Tank and the Bangas, G-Eazy, and Donald Harrison. In the studio, he has produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered records for Tank and the Bangas, the Headhunters, Weedie Braimah, G-Eazy, Donald Harrison, Big Sam's Funky Nation, Cimafunk, H.E.R., Spencer., Tonya Boyd-Cannon, Isaac Eady, Amina Scott, Ra Kalam Bob Moses, and many others. His engineering work includes Weedie Braimah's The Hands of Time, which earned a 2022 Grammy nomination for Best Improvised Jazz Solo for Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah's performance on “Sackodougou.” His studio work also includes recording, mixing, and mastering for NPR's American Routes series. He has installed sound systems for churches, venues, and other performance spaces across the country.

McRae has also invested in the next generation of New Orleans music talent. He ran an afterschool program for high school students out of his own recording studio, in partnership with the Roots of Music, teaching financial literacy, audio production, audio engineering, and music business.

That range — as performer, engineer, producer, venue leader, and educator — gives McRae a practical, artist-first perspective on live production that he brings directly into his teaching. In the classroom, McRae will guide students through the fundamentals and advanced techniques of live sound reinforcement and stage lighting, preparing them for large-scale, professional productions — the kind of high-stakes, high-volume events New Orleans is known for, from Jazz Fest to citywide festivals. McRae has described his approach to mentoring young musicians as helping them build the skills and infrastructure to “control their destinies” — in music, and in life. It's a philosophy he plans to carry directly into the classroom at Loyola. Loyola's live sound and lighting program gives students direct, real-world experience running productions for campus and community events, and McRae's appointment strengthens the university's connection between the classroom and the working New Orleans music industry.