In the 1960s, Tunisian musicologist Manoubi Snoussi broadcast a series of didactic radio programs entitled “Introduction to Tunisian Music” on the Tunisian national radio station. The program covered a range of musical genres considered vital components of the national patrimony, from the Andalusi-derived maluf to Islamic liturgy and folk music. This series, while extraordinary in some ways, was also part of a broader state-sponsored push to collect, define, and promote Tunisian musical heritage as a crucial strategy of nation-building in the wake of French colonialism. Snoussi’s broadcasts can be considered alongside contemporaneous state initiatives such as Salah El Mahdi’s publications on “Tunisian Musical Heritage” and the work of the Rashidiyya Institute and its performing ensemble, yet the radio medium’s orientation towards a mass audience pushed this project into a new realm. Simultaneously entertaining and edifying, the “Introduction” sought to inculcate the nation with a sense of sonic identity that was rooted in both pre-colonial historical narratives and narrow Arab-Islamic definitions of Tunisia’s ethno-racial population. This paper will consider the broadcasts in the context of the decolonizing moment in Tunisia and broader state and popular struggles to define a Tunisian identity. While produced in a nationalist context, Snoussi’s own background as the former assistant to prolific French musicologist Rodolphe d’Erlanger, and his role in the colonial production of knowledge, will also be addressed. This paper will also illuminate the historical trajectory of North African narratives around race and ethnicity in ways that I hope will aid in deconstructing and disrupting racialized forms of nationalism in the present moment.