African-American music

The tradition & historical record

African-American music is a broad term covering a diverse range of musical genres largely developed by African Americans and their culture. Its origins lie in musical forms that developed as a result of the enslavement of African Americans prior to the American Civil War. It has been said that "every genre that is born from America has black roots." White slave owners subjugated their slaves physically, mentally, and spiritually through brutal and demeaning acts with whipping and death. Some White Americans considered African Americans separate and unequal for centuries, going to extraordinary lengths to keep them oppressed. African-American slaves created a distinctive type of music that played an important role in the era of enslavement. Slave songs, commonly known as work songs, were used to combat the hardships of the physical labor. Work songs were also used to communicate with other slaves without the slave owner hearing. The song "Wade in the Water" was sung by slaves to warn others trying to leave to use the water to obscure their trail. Following the Civil War, African Americans employed playing European music in military bands developed a new style called ragtime that gradually evolved into jazz. Jazz incorporated the sophisticated polyrhythmic structure of dance and folk music of peoples from western and Sub-Saharan Africa. ¹

Most slaves arrived in the Americas from the western coast of Africa. This area encompasses modern-day Nigeria, Mali, Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Gambia and parts of Sierra Leone. Harmonic and rhythmic features from these areas, European musical instrumentation, and the chattel slavery forced upon Black Americans all contributed to their music. Many of the characteristic musical forms that define African-American music have historical precedents. These earlier forms include: field hollers, beat boxing, work song, spoken word, rapping, scatting, call and response, vocality (or special vocal effect: guttural effects, interpolated vocality, falsetto, melisma, vocal rhythmization), improvisation, blue notes, polyrhythms (syncopation, concrescence, tension, improvisation, percussion, swung note), texture (antiphony, homophony, polyphony, heterophony) and harmony (vernacular progressions; complex, multi-part harmony, as in spirituals, doo-wop, and barbershop music). American composer Olly Wilson outlines "heterogeneous sound ideals" that define traditional and common patterns in African music, such as the use of timbre, pitch, volume and duration, and the incorporation of the body in making music. His findings include uses of call-and-response and the importance of interjections from the audience to express satisfaction or dissatisfaction. These heterogeneous sound ideals are also found in many other types of music. White people sometimes taught black slaves to play Western instruments such as the fiddle and violin. Since white colonizers viewed indigenous African religious practices that included drumming and dancing as idolatrous, the enslaved individuals conducted their music-infused religious ceremonies in private. ¹

In the late 18th century folk spirituals originated among Southern slaves following their conversion to Christianity. Slaves reinterpreted the practice of Christianity in a way that had meaning to them as Africans in America. They often sang the spirituals in groups as they worked the plantation fields. African-American spirituals (Negro Spirituals) were created in invisible churches and regular Black churches. The hymns, melody, and rhythms were similar to songs heard in West Africa. Enslaved and free blacks created their own words and tunes. Themes include the hardships of slavery and the hope of freedom. Spirituals from the era of slavery are called Slave Shout Songs. These shout songs are sung today by Gullah Geechee people and other African Americans in churches and praise houses. During slavery, these songs were coded messages that spoke of escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad and were sung by enslaved African Americans in plantation fields to send coded messages to other slaves, unbeknownst to the slaveholders. According to musicologist and historian Eric Sean Crawford who published Gullah Spirituals: The Sound of Freedom and Protest in the South Carolina Sea Islands, Gullah music influenced all genres of American music. Crawford said: "All genres of music have been influenced by Gullah Geechee spirituals. This music's bent notes, syncopated rhythms, and improvisational qualities heavily influenced gospel and country music. These musical traits found a secular home in the blues, jazz, and even later popular styles like hip hop". Scholar LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant explained Gullah spirituals are sacred music that connects Black Americans to ancestral spirits. ¹

The influence of African Americans on mainstream American music began in the 19th century with the advent of blackface minstrelsy. The banjo, of African origin, became a popular instrument, and its African-derived rhythms were incorporated into popular songs by Stephen Foster and other songwriters. Over time the banjo's construction adopted some European traditions such as a flat fingerboard. Some banjos had five strings, in contrast to the West African three-string version. This resulted in the creation of several different types of banjos in the United States. In the 1830s, the Second Great Awakening led to a rise in Christian revivals, especially among African Americans. Drawing on traditional work songs, enslaved African Americans originated and performed a wide variety of spirituals and other Christian music. Some of these songs were coded messages of subversion against slaveholders, or signals to escape. For example, Harriet Tubman sang coded messages to her mother and other slaves in the field to let them know she was escaping on the Underground Railroad. Tubman sang: "I'm sorry I'm going to leave you, farewell, oh farewell; But I'll meet you in the morning, farewell, oh farewell, I'll meet you in the morning, I'm bound for the promised land, On the other side of Jordan, Bound for the Promised Land." During the period after the Civil War, the spread of African-American music continued. The Fisk University Jubilee Singers first toured in 1871. Artists including Jack Delaney helped revolutionize post-war African-American music in the central-east of the United States. In the following years, professional "jubilee" troops formed and toured. The first black musical-comedy troupe, Hyers Sisters Comic Opera Co., was organized in 1876. ¹

The first musical written and produced by African Americans, by Bob Cole and Billy Johnson, debuted on Broadway in 1898. The first recording of black musicians was of Bert Williams and George Walker in 1890, featuring music from Broadway musicals. Theodore Drury helped black artists develop in opera. ¹

Billboard started making a separate list of hit records for African-American music in October 1942 with the "Harlem Hit Pa… ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “African-American music”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

African-American music is broad term covering a diverse range of musical genres largely developed by African Americans and their culture, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 22 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²