Celebrating African American Black History Month: A History Of Black Music In The U.S.
Every year since June 7, 1979, Black Music Appreciation Month is the annual celebration of African-American music in the United States.
On this African American Black history month that we celebrate every month, I wanted to honor Black American musical pioneers by looking back at their legacy here in the United States and all over the globe.
President Jimmy Carter started it as Black Music Month and decreed that June would be the month of Black music.
In 2009, President Barack Obama gave the monument its current name, Black Music Appreciation Month.
In his 2016 proclamation, Obama noted that African American music and musicians have helped the country “to dance, to express our faith through song, to march against injustice, and to defend our country’s enduring promise of freedom and opportunity for all.”
The month-long celebration of Black music’s rich legacy and influence carries an extra special meaning for the observance’s co-founders: Kenneth Gamble and Dyana Williams.
That’s because — by presidential proclamation — the name of the annual June campaign has been changed back to Black Music Month after also being called African American Music Appreciation Month in recent years.
President Joe Biden signed the proclamation on May 31, 2023.
It partially reads, “During Black Music Month, we pay homage to legends of American music, who have composed the soundtrack of American life.
Their creativity has given rise to distinctly American art forms that influence contemporary music worldwide and sing to the soul of the American experience.”
Click here to read the proclamation in full!
What is African American Black history month in June?
Biden signed bipartisan legislation two years ago that established Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Celebrated on June 19, Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S.
Black music is a multibillion-dollar business and cultural asset that informs human beings globally.
Biden said at the proclamation, “when we set up the Black Music Association in the late 1970s, we intended to stimulate various aspects of the Black music business, along with the all-important consumers, to elevate our industry and garner respect for the creatives and professionals.
Black is more than just a color; it’s a frame of mind. All genres of music created by Black folks in America are our heart and soul gifts — as well as a universal language widely felt and embraced worldwide.”
Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, to the enslaved Africans, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas.
The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as “Juneteenth” by the newly freed people in Texas.
Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, to the enslaved Africans, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas.
The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as “Juneteenth” by the newly freed people in Texas.
African American Contributions to the Music Industry: A Retrospective
One of my favorite interviews I’ve read was from vulture.com with Quincy Jones by David Marchese.
The internet had been buzzing because Quincy spilled the tea on some of our pop culture favs, his relationship with the Trumps, and the problem with modern pop music in the United States.
If you don’t know what I’m conferring, look at the interview here!
It is a read worth reading! In the interview entitled “In Conversation: Quincy Jones”.
His interview got me thinking about the history of music in the United States.
Quincy Jones is critical in helping shape American rhythm and blues, funk, soul, big band, swing, bossa nova, jazz, hip hop, rock and roll, and pop music.
Quincy Jones doesn’t shy away from saying how he really feels, especially about the current state of modern Pop music!
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delight Jones Jr., a Chicago, Illinois native (born March 14, 1933), also known as “Q,” is an American record producer, actor, conductor, arranger, composer, musician, television producer, film producer, instrumentalist (trumpet, French horn, drum, vocals, piano), magazine founder, entertainment company executive, and humanitarian.
His career spans six decades in the entertainment industry, with a record 79 Grammy Award nominations and 28 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend Award in 1991.
Raised in Seattle, Washington, Jones developed an interest in music at an early age and attended the Berklee College of Music.
He came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor before moving on to work prolifically in pop music and film scores.
The Conversation
In the interview, Marchese asked Q…
“Is there innovation happening in modern pop music?”
Q answered…
“Hell no. It’s just loops, beats, rhymes, and hooks. What is there for me to learn from that? There ain’t no fucking songs. The song is the power; the singer is the messenger. The greatest singer in the world cannot save a bad song. I learned that 50 years ago, and it’s the single greatest lesson I ever learned as a producer. If you don’t have a great song, it doesn’t matter what else you put around it.”
They continue with Marchese asking Q…
“What would account for the songs being less good than they used to be?”
Q’s response…
“The mentality of the people making the music. Producers now are ignoring all the musical principles of the earlier generations. It’s a joke. That’s not how it works: You’re supposed to use everything from the past. Knowing where you come from makes it easier to get where you’re going. You must understand music to touch people and become the soundtrack to their lives.”
My favorite part of the interview is this question by Marchese…
“What’s something positive you’ve been feeling about music lately?”
Q’s Response…
“Understanding where it comes from. It’s fascinating. I was on a trip with Paul Allen a few years ago, and I went to the bathroom, and there were maps on the wall of how the Earth looked a million-and-a-half years ago. Off the coast of South Africa, where Durban is, was the coast of China.
The people had to be mixing, and you hear it in the music — in the drums from both places. There are African qualities to Chinese and Japanese music, too, with the Kodo drumming. It all comes from Africa. It’s a heavy thing to think about.”
Q’s observation became the muse for this article! Click here to read the full interview.
Exploring the Roots of African American Music in the United States
If music came from Africa, we must acknowledge the obvious in America about the nation’s music history. The United States is known worldwide for its music.
The United States are also known for its disrespectful nature and racist actions toward American citizens of African descent within the country.
Like Q said, “Understanding where it comes from.” is something many Americans do not honestly know. There has always been a dismissal of the influence of Africa within this nation.
But the truth is there would be no Great United States of America without the aid or influence of Africans/African Americans (slave or free)!
And the United States of America would not have great music if it wasn’t for the impact of Africans.
Music History of the United States
The music history of the United States includes many folk, popular, and classical styles. Some of the best-known genres of American music are rhythm and blues, jazz, rock and roll, rock, soul, hip hop, pop, and country.
History began with the Native Americans, the first people to populate North America.
The first musicians anywhere in North America were Native Americans, who consisted of hundreds of ethnic groups across the country, each with their own unique styles of folk music.
Of these cultures, many, and their musical traditions, are now extinct, though some remain moderately vibrant in a modern form, such as Hawaiian music.
With the colonization of America from European countries like France, Spain, Scotland, England, Ireland, and Wales came Christian choirs, musical notation, broadsides, and West African slaves.
West African slaves played various instruments, especially drums and string instruments similar to the banjo.
The Spanish also played a similar instrument called the Bandora. Both of these cultures introduced polyrhythms and call-and-response style vocals.
By the 16th century, large-scale immigration of English, French, and Spanish settlers brought new folk music.
This was followed by importing Africans as slaves and bringing their music.
The Africans were as culturally varied as the Native Americans descended from hundreds of ethnic groups in West Africa.
Like most of its hemispheric neighbors, American music combines African, European, and a few native influences.
Still later in the country’s history, ethnic and musical diversity grew as the United States became a melting pot of different peoples.
The Truth About American Music
I am reading a book entitled “Tunesmith” by Jimmy Webb, a platinum-selling American songwriter, composer, and singer.
In the book, he explains the truth about American Music.
He said, “It has been accepted that Foster’s position (Stephen Foster) as the father of all American musical things one being that is commonly supposed that he invented the “form of the American popular song.
It is said that he originated the so-called A/B structure, simply speaking the verse/chorus.
Stephen Foster is often credited as one of the first who made professional songwriting profitable.
Fosters’ songs were the first genuinely American in theme, characterizing love of home, American temperament, river life and work, politics, battlefields, slavery, and plantation life.
The superficial interpretation of Foster’s compositions in modern times could be considered judgmental to African Americans in current cultural contexts.
However, Foster unveiled the realities of slavery in his work while also imparting dignity to African Americans in his compositions, significantly as he grew as an artist. Foster was the first to refer to an African American woman as “a lady” in his piece “Nelly Was a Lady.”
To Purchase Tunesmith, Click Here!
The Truth About Music in the United States!
![African American Black History Month](https://jamielondonclay.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/joshua-hoehne-7s1j-DZ5KYQ-unsplash-1024x682.jpg)
Some significant irritation that Webb unveiled is that Foster only reinvented or copied the verse/chorus structure of the Irish folk Song.
Foster was, without overdoing it, the first famous American songwriter and creator of the first truly “native” American songs.
Foster was also a political activist, becoming a writer of anti-separatist propaganda poems as tensions between the North and South increased.
It is widely accepted that his “native” quality, which owed a great deal to the work songs, chants, and spirituals of Negro laborers, all but disappeared with Foster’s death (January 13, 1864, in New York City) and did not reappear in American musical culture until the 1880s.
Another significant irritation about Foster’s preeminence as the “Father of American Pop Music” is that such hero worship ignores the contributions of the considerable numbers of black poets and country singers who either preceded or paralleled his heyday and without a doubt put their stamp on him.
During the late 1800s, black performers began to copy white minstrel shows, which are in themselves copies of a Black minstrel show.
But…
A dramatic expansion of the groundbreaking work of journalism. The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah Jones. A New Origin Story offers a revealing vision of the American past and present.
In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia. Bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa.
Their arrival led to a cruel and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years.
James A. Bland
It is said that many white people got their first taste of Black music in whorehouses, but the breakthrough into the white world of music publishing was first accomplished by a northern Negro named James A. Bland, who composed more than seven hundred songs for black minstrel shows.
Another African American forerunner, Ben Harney, was always assumed by Black people and whites alike to be a white man.
The Scots, Irish and English ballads, and reels transplanted to the Deep South, cunningly altered by African and Christian laments, pounding rhythms, and field hollers where the roots of modern American songwriting dwell.
America’s Music – An African Legacy
Although the musical cultures of West Africa during the slave trade
period varied from nation to nation, the cultures shared enough features to constitute an identifiable heritage for Africans in the New World.
From the accounts of explorers and traders, which can be added evidence concluded from modern oral traditions, we learn of the primary of music as an integral part of everyday life, unique performance practices, and traditional musical instruments.
Moreover, it is possible to imagine how the music might have sounded since many past instruments are still used today, several songs have persevered in notation, and much music has been transmitted orally through the generations.
Music-making was a communal activity involving the interaction of soloists or leaders with the group as the chorus.
Music served not only in the conventional roles of enhancing worship rituals and supplying recreational outlets but also offered a means of communication and a way of sharing collective experiences, whether of the past or present.
Integrating music with dance and/or dramatic elements was a characteristic feature of the cultures.
The African Diaspora
The precise number of Africans transported to North America via slave ships on the so-called Middle Passage is unknown; it has been estimated by some to be ten million, and by others, fifteen million or more.
Although Black men entered North America as early as 1501 with the first explorers, and slavery became established in the West Indies during the second decade of the century, it was not until the sixteenth century that Africans were imported into the mainland colonies.
From Indentured Servitude to Slavery
According to reliable estimates, there were 1,980 colonists on the mainland of America in 1600-1800 in the Plymouth Colony and 1,800 in Virginia. The records do not show the number of Black people included in the population figures for Virginia at that time.
By 1649, Virginia’s population had increased to 15,000 whites and 300 Black people. In 1626 the Dutch West India Company brought eleven Black men from Angola into New Amsterdam, a settlement at the mouth of the Hudson River, to work as the “Company’s Negroes” in the village as builders, domestics, and farm hands.
Two years later, three Black women were brought in from Angola. Sometime before 1638, New England saw its first Black men, and by the middle of the century, Black folk on the streets of colonial America were common.
The earliest African arrivals in the colonies had the status of indentured servants, as did many whites and Native Americans of the period.
Already by 1644, Governor Kieft of New Amsterdam had released from bondage the original eleven men of Angola and their wives for long and faithful service, and the records show that Black indentured servants in Virginia began to secure their freedom in the 1650s, having served out their time.
During the second half of the seventeenth century, the importation of Africans into the colonies increased. Increasingly black captives were given contracts that made them servants for life instead of servants for a time. Eventually, they received no indentures at all.
During this period, Black slavery became established, first by custom, then by law. From North to South, the colonists began to enact laws ensuring that the incoming Africans would be held in lifetime servitude.
Although a Massachusetts law of 1641 prohibited enslavement, it was easy to escape it; slave traders had only to see that the Africans they imported were captured in wars or sold to them by others.
During the 1660s, the codes of the colonies giving statutory recognition to Black slavery came swiftly: Virginia in 1661, Maryland in 1663, and New York and New Jersey in 1664.
Later the colonies of Pennsylvania, Delaware, New England, and the Carolinas followed suit. By 1700 the “peculiar institution” of slavery was a reality throughout the thirteen colonies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLG871tKZUM
The Beginning of Racism in America
The concept of race is a social invention that blossomed during the late 17th and early 18th centuries (Fields, 1990; Jordan, 1968; Omi & Winant, 1994; Winant, 2009). The advent of the American colonies and the ideology of race coincided and were used to describe differences in humanity.
Historian Barbara Fields (1990) noted, “American racial ideology [was] as original an invention of the Founders as [was] the United States itself” (p. 101).
According to the American Anthropological Association
(1998): Race was a mode of classification linked specifically to people in the colonial situation. It included a growing ideology of inequality developed to rationalize European attitudes and treatment of the conquered and enslaved peoples…
The ideology magnified the differences among Europeans, Africans, and Indians, set up a rigid hierarchy of socially exclusive categories, underscored and strengthened unequal rank and status differences, and supplied the rationalization that inequality was natural or God-given.
Along with physical features, cultural and behavioral traits became markers for racial identities.
Whiteness and its cultural characteristics became the standard of being human and the climax of civilization.
Non-Whites were classified as religious heathens, naturally savage, and compliant. These concepts placed them in the lowest classification of human beings or sub-persons (Mills, 1998).
The racial classification of Africans as the lowest form of humanity was justification for race-based slavery, which was seen as the appropriate institution to civilize Black people (Jordan, 1968).
To Purchase The Music of Black Americans
Africans were taken to North America in chains, stripped to their bare skin, and those that came to the mainland colonies were separated from their families and communities.
But though they could bring no material objects, they kept memories of the rich cultural traditions they had left behind in the homeland and passed these traditions down to their children.
The importance given to music and dance in Africa was reflected among slaves in the colonies, as seen in the songs they sang in their dancing and folk festivals.
In addition, specific customs persisted throughout their long years of socialization into the lifestyle of the dominant society in the United States. (To be sure, the African experience was also reflected in other areas, particularly folk literature, and religion.)
The function of music as a communal activity, for example, led to the development of slave song performances that provided some measure of release from the physical and spiritual brutality of slavery.
Despite the interaction of African and European cultural patterns in black communities, with the consequential emergence of new African American patterns, there persisted among black folk musicians a fondness for certain performance practices, certain habits, specific musical instruments, and certain ways of shaping music to meet their needs in the unique environment that had roots in the African experience.
The blended cultures created what would become a melting pot of American Music!
The Beginnings of Popular Music
The first field of American music that could be considered popular rather than classical or folk was the singing of the colonial New England choirs and traveling singing experts like William Billings.
The Great Awakening of the 1730s and ’40s was a period of religious enthusiasm among whites and Black people (both slave and free) that saw enthusiastic, evangelical “Negro spirituals” grow in popularity.
During the 19th century, it was not spirituals that gained widespread acclaim, but animated comic songs performed by minstrels in blackface and written by legendary songwriters like Stephen Foster and Daniel Emmett.
During the Civil War, popular ballads were standard. Some were used liberally by the North and the South as patriotic songs.
Finally, late in the century, the African American cakewalk evolved into ragtime, which became a North American and European sensation, while mainstream America was captivated by the brass band marches.
The first few decades of the 20th century also saw the rise of famous comic musical theater, jazz, and blues, two distinct but related genres that began flourishing in cities like Memphis, Chicago, and New Orleans and began attracting some mainstream audiences.
Blues and jazz were the foundation of what became American popular music.
The history of American music is hugely diverse and rich, with some of the most influential music worldwide to date.
Whether you’re a fan of the blues, rock and roll, hip-hop, r&b soul, or jazz, many genres of music found their origins in the United States, and it is essential to absorb yourself fully in the American culture by understanding the importance of music to the country.
History of American Music
The music you will hear in their videos is not necessarily performed by people who played when their type of music was created (especially the early stuff).
However, they are respective and valid members of the musical forms they stand for. Early records of some of these forms began at the end of the decade, which tries the one in which they are placed. Enjoy!
The Characteristics of Music in the United States
The music of the United States reflects the country’s multi-ethnic population through a diverse array of styles.
The country’s most internationally renowned genres are jazz, blues, gospel country, bluegrass, rock, rhythm and blues, soul, ragtime, hip hop, barbershop, pop, experimental, techno, house, dance, boogaloo, salsa, rock, and roll.
The United States has the world’s largest music market, and its music is heard worldwide.
The music of the United States can be characterized using syncopation and, asymmetrical rhythms, long, irregular melodies, which are said to “reflect the wide-open geography of (the American landscape)” and the “sense of personal freedom characteristic of American life.”
Some distinct aspects of American music, like the call-and-response format, are derived from African techniques and instruments.
Social identity
Music intertwines with aspects of American social and cultural identity, including social class, race, ethnicity, geography, religion, language, gender, and sexuality.
The relationship between music and race is the most persuasive determiner of musical meaning in the United States.
The development of African American musical identity, out of distinct sources from Africa and Europe, has been a constant theme in the music history of the United States.
Little documentation existed of colonial-era African American music when styles, songs, and instruments from across West Africa blended with European styles and instruments in the melting pot of slavery.
African American musical styles became an integral part of American popular music through blues, jazz, rhythm, and blues, and then rock and roll, soul, and hip hop; all these styles were created in African American styles and idioms before eventually becoming common in performance and consumption across racial lines.
Economic and social classes separate American music through creating and consuming music, such as the upper-class patronage of symphony-goers and the poor performers of rural and ethnic folk music.
Musical divisions based on class are not absolute. However, they are sometimes perceived as actual; popular American country music, for example, is a commercial genre designed to “appeal to a working-class identity, whether or not its listeners are working class.”
Country music is also intertwined with geographic identity and is specifically rural in origin and function; other genres, like R&B and hip hop, are perceived as inherently urban.
The process of transplanting music between cultures is not without criticism. The issue of cultural appropriation has also been a major part of racial relations in the United States.
The use of African American musical techniques, images, and conceits in popular music, by and for white Americans, has been widespread since at least the mid-19th century, like songs of Stephen Foster and the rise of minstrel shows.
The American music industry has actively tried to popularize white performers of African American music because they are more pleasant to mainstream and middle-class Americans.
This process has been related to the rise of stars as varied as Benny Goodman, Eminem, and Elvis Presley, as well as popular styles like blue-eyed soul and rockabilly.
It is high time the United States of America gave honor where honor is due. There would be no distinct sound of music in the United States if it weren’t for the citizens of African descent and their ancestors. Not to knock the validity of other diverse cultural practices. But one cannot ignore the obvious!
Back to the Interview…
David Marches asked Q, “If you could snap your fingers and fix one problem in the country, what would it be?”
Q’s response …
“Racism. I’ve been watching it for a long time —
the ’30s to now. We’ve come a long way but have a long way to go. The
South has always been fucked up, but you know where you stand. The racism in
the North is disguised. You never know where you stand. That’s why what’s
happening now is good because people are saying they are racists who didn’t use to say it. Now we know.”
In Conclusion…
Racism is one of the dumbest and most inconvenient inventions in America, but Understanding where it comes from has been fascinating, to say the least!
As I pondered the words of Q in this interview, it was vital for me to know, as a singer/musician, where it all comes from.
The music, rhythms, styles, characteristics, melodies, skill, and technique come from one of the greatest gifts in America… The Africans and their decedents.
We could argue this reality, but let’s face it, there is no need. However, you are welcome to leave your comments in the section below!
To learn more about the origins of music in America, you can buy the books Tunesmith by Jimmy Webb and The Music of Black Americans by Eileen Southern.
It is technically African American Black History Month, in which we are supposed to take the time to acknowledge the Black people contribution to American music and to celebrate black excellence.
Follow me on social media and subscribe to my email list here!