Lee Watkins is an Ethnomusicologist and the Director of the International Library of African Music (ILAM) at Rhodes University. ILAM was established in 1954 and is the oldest music archive on the African continent. He is also the Editor for an accredited journal called African Music. African Music was also first published in 1954 and is the oldest African music journal on the continent. He has managed various projects and supervised students dealing with the heritage of a rural community in Keiskammahoek, in the Eastern Cape, and the jazz music heritage of the Eastern Cape. As Director he is responsible for managing a vast collection of African music instruments and recordings made by, among others, Hugh Tracey, who established ILAM, Dave Dargie and Jaco Kruger. He is mostly interested in the conservation of our music heritage for socio-economic development, particularly in the rural Eastern Cape, and has diverse research interests, from hip hop studies to digital archival practices.