The purpose of this narrative ethnographic study was to examine my experiences as an African American music teacher educator while attending and participating in the Annual Kenya Music Festival. The rising cultural heterogeneity of American students (Elpus & Abril, 2019) has prompted further integration of non-Eurocentric musical traditions into music classrooms (Campbell, 2004). Frameworks such as World Music Pedagogy (Campbell, 2004; Cantarelli Vita & Campbell, 2021) were developed as student-facing tools to help music educators meaningfully incorporate various musical and cultural practices into daily instruction. Nevertheless, recent literature on multicultural collegiate music education (Miralis, 2003) challenged the readiness of pre-service music educators to purposefully provide holistic instruction to students on music outside of the Western Classical Art tradition. Therefore, as a music teacher educator, I resolved to address this concern and interrogate my personal ideologies and approaches towards conserving and respecting outside cultural traditions from both the cultural learner and culture standard bearer perspective. Participation in the Kenya Music Festival as a foreign observer and guest adjudicator for the African American Spirituals category provided an immersive and authentic opportunity for the examination of my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs concerning the implementation of World Music Pedagogy principles in music teacher education. I determined narrative ethnography to be an appropriate methodology for “present[ing] both the Self and Other together” (Tedlock, 1991, p. 69). Data was collected throughout July and August 2024 utilizing the Chang et al. (2013) and Gubrium and Holstein (2008) guidelines for ethnographic journaling. The re-storying of my experiences at the festival centered around the various forms of connection I witnessed both intrinsically and from other observers and performers. The spontaneous and visceral feelings of belonging and responsibility I encountered especially as an African American potentially signaled a deeply resonant and personal cultural connection. By consistently engaging with my “relational self” (Gubrium & Holstein, 2008, p. 241) in this foreign context, I recognized that I received the musical knowledge present at the festival through the filter of my life experiences; however, acknowledging the presence of my experiences rather than withdrawing from them heightened my insights into transmitting the music confidently in culturally-affirming ways to others. I recommend more widespread exploration into teacher-facing world music pedagogy approaches that center intensive self-reflection, acknowledgement, and expressive empathy. While generalizable implications cannot be drawn from my narrative, the connective and relational aspects could prove instructive towards the promotion of comprehensive music teaching and learning in higher education.