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African-American music

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"The Banjo Lesson," by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1893. Oil on canvas, 49" x 35 1/2". Hampton University Museum.

African-American music is an umbrella term given to a range of music and musical genres emerging from or influenced by the culture of African Americans, who have long constituted a large and significant ethnic minority of the population of the United States. Many of their ancestors were originally brought to North America to work as enslaved peoples, bringing with them typically polyrhythmic songs from hundreds of black African ethnic groups across West and sub-Saharan Africa. In the United States, as cultures merged, multiple cultural traditions merged with influences from polka, waltzes and other European music. Later periods saw considerable innovation and change. African American genres have been highly influential across socio-economic and racial groupings internationally meeting also with tremendous popularity on a global level. African American music and all aspects of African American culture are celebrated during Black History Month in February of each year in the United States.

History

19th century (1800s–1900s)

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. In the 1830s, the Second Great Awakening led to a rise in Christian revivals and pietism, especially among African Americans. Drawing on traditional work songs, African American slaves originated and began performing a wide variety of Spirituals and other Christian music. Many of these songs were coded messages of subversion against slaveholders, or which signaled escape.

During the period after the Civil War, the spread of African American music continued. The Fisk University Jubilee Singers toured first in 1871. Artists including Morris Hill and Jack Delaney helped revolutionize post-war African music in the central East of the United States.In the following years, the Hampton Students and professional jubilee troops formed and toured. The first black musical-comedy troup, Hyers Sisters Comic Opera Co., was organized in 1876.[1]

By the end of the 19th century, African American music was an integral part of mainstream American culture.

Early 20th century (1900s–1930s)

The Slayton Jubilee Singers perform in Nebraska about 1910.

In early 20th century American theater, the first musicals written and produced by African Americans debuted on Broadway in 1898 with A Trip to Coontown by Bob Cole and Billy Johnson. In 1901, the first known recording of black musicians was that of Bert Williams and George Walker; this set featured music from Broadway musicals. Theodore Drury played a very significant role helping blacks emerge in the opera field. He founded the Drury Opera Company in 1900 and although he used a white orchestra, used black singers in leading roles and choruses. Although this company was only active from 1900 to 1908, black singers' opportunities with Drury marked the first black participation in opera companies. Also significant is Scott Joplin's opera, Treemonisha, which is unique as a black jazz-folk opera; it was first performed in 1911.[2]

The early part of the 20th century saw a constant rise in popularity of African American blues and jazz. Also, developments in the fields of visual arts and the Harlem Renaissance lead to developments in music. Ragtime performers like Scott Joplin became popular and some soon became associated with the Harlem Renaissance and early civil rights activists. Also, white and Latino performers of African-American music were visible, rooted in the history of cross-cultural communication between the United States' races. Jewish klezmer music, for example, was a noted influence on jazz, while Jelly Roll Morton famously explained that a "Latin tinge" was a necessary component of good music. African American music was often simplified for European American audiences, who would not have as readily accepted black performers, leading to genres like swing music, a pop-based outgrowth of jazz.

In addition, African Americans were taking huge leaps in the realm of concert music at the turn of the century. While they were originally excluded from white symphony orchestras, black musicians had opportunities to study in music conservatories that had been founded in the 1860s; some include the Oberlin School of Music, National Conservatory of Music, and the New England Conservatory.[3] Blacks also formed their own symphony orchestras at the turn of the century in major cities such as Chicago, New Orleans, and Philadelphia; various black orchestras began to perform regularly in the late 1890s-early 1900s. In 1906, the first incorporated black orchestra in the nation was established in Philadelphia.[4] A few years later in the early 1910s, some all-black music schools, such as the [[Colored Music Settlement School | Music School Settlement for Colored and the Martin-Smith School of Music, were founded in New York.[5]

The Music School Settlement for Colored became a very strong sponsor for the famous Clef Club orchestra in New York. The Clef Club Symphony Orchestra attracted both black and white audiences to concerts at Carnegie Hall from 1912–15. Conducted by James Reese Europe and William H. Tyers, the orchestra uniquely included banjos, mandolins, and baritone horns. Concerts featured music written by black composers, notably Harry T. Burleigh, Will Marion Cook, and even Europe, the conductor. Other annual black concert series include the William Hackney “All-Colored Composers” concerts in Chicago and the Atlanta Colored Music Festivals.[6]

The return of the black musical to broadway occurred in 1921 with Sissle and Blake's Shuffle Along. In 1927, a concert survey of black music was performed at Carnegie Hall including jazz, spirituals and the symphonic music of W.C. Handy's Orchestra and Jubilee singers. The first major film musical with a black cast was King Vidor's Hallelujah of 1929 . The first Symphony by a black composer to be performed by a major orchestra was William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony with the New York Philharmonic. African American performers were featured in operas such as Porgy and Bess and Virgil Thompson's Four Saints in Three Acts of 1934 . Also in 1934 William Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony became the second African American composer's work to receive attention by a major orchestra with its performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra.[7]

African-Americans were the pioneers of jazz music, through masters such as Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington.

Mid-20th century (1940s–1960s)

By the 1940s, cover versions of African American songs were commonplace, and frequently topped the charts, while the original musicians found success among their African American audience, but not in mainstream. In 1955, Thurman Ruth persuaded a gospel group to sing in a secular setting, the Apollo Theater, with such success that he subsequently arranged gospel caravans that traveled around the country, playing the same venues that rhythm and blues singers like had popularized. Meanwhile, jazz performers began to push jazz away from a danceable popular music towards more intricate arrangements, improvisation, and technically challenging forms, culminating in the bebop of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, the cool sounds and modal jazz of Miles Davis, and the free jazz of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane.

African Americans in the 1940s and 1950s were developing an outgrowth of rhythm and blues into a genre called rock and roll, which featured a very strong backbeat and whose prominent exponents included Louis Jordan and Wynonie Harris. However, it was with white musicians such as Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, playing a guitar-based fusion of black rock and roll with country music called rockabilly, that rock music became commercially appealing. Rock music thereafter became more associated with white people, though it did give some black people, such as Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, a high level of commercial success.

The late 1950s also saw vastly increased popularity of hard blues from the earliest part of the century, both in the United States and United Kingdom. The 50s also saw doo-wop become popular. A secularized form of American gospel music called soul also developed, with pioneers like Ray Charles and Sam Cooke leading the wave. Soul and R&B became a major influence on surf, as well as the chart-topping girl groups like The Angels and The Shangri-Las, only some of whom were white. In 1959, Berry Gordy founded Motown Records, the first record label to primarily feature African-American artists aimed at achieving crossover success. The label developed an innovative--and commercially successful--style of soul music with distinctive pop elements. Its early roster included The Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, and The Temptations, The Supremes, and others. Black divas like Aretha Franklin became 60s crossover stars. In the UK, British blues became a gradually mainstream phenomenon, returning to the United States in the form of the British Invasion, a group of bands led by The Beatles who performed blues and R&B inspired pop, with both traditional and modernized aspects.

The British Invasion knocked many black bands off the charts, with only a handful of groups, like The Mamas & the Papas and some Motown artists maintaining a pop career. Soul music, however, remained popular among blacks through highly-evolved forms like Funk, developed through the innovations of James Brown.

By the end of the decade, Blacks were part of the [psychedelia]] and early metal trends, particularly Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was himself the primary innovator on the electric guitar, and was the first guitarists to use effects pedals such as the wah wah pedal. Psychedelic soul began to flourish with the 1960s culture. Even more popular among blacks and with more crossover appeal, was album-oriented soul in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which revolutionized African American music with intelligent and introspective lyrics, often with a socially aware tone. Marvin Gaye's What's Going On is perhaps the best-remembered of this field.

The 1970s and 1980s

The 1970s saw one of the greatest decades of black bands concerning melodic music. Album-oriented soul continued its popularity, while musicians like Smokey Robinson helped turn it into Quiet Storm music. Funk evolved into two strands, one a pop-soul-jazz-bass fusion pioneered by Sly & the Family Stone, and the other a more experimental psychedelic and metal fusion epitomized by George Clinton and his P-Funk ensemble.

Black musicians achieved generally little mainstream success, though some African American artists like Roberta Flack, Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, The O'Jays, Gladys Knight & the Pips found crossover audiences. White listeners preferred country rock, singer-songwriters, stadium rock, soft rock, glam rock, and, in some subcultures, heavy metal and punk rock. The disco era was popularized by Barry White and Donna Summer, among others.

The dozens, an urban African American tradition of using playful rhyming ridicule developed into street jive in the early 70's, which in turn inspired new form a new form of music by the late 1970s: hip-hop. Black nationalism-inspirired spoken word poets like The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron are also cited as the major innovators in early hip hop. Beginning at block parties in The Bronx, hip hop music arose as one facet of a large subculture with rebellious and progressive elements. DJs spun records, most typically funk, while MCs introduced tracks to the dancing audience. Over time, DJs, particularly Jamaican immigrant DJ Kool Herc for example, began isolating and repeating the percussion breaks, producing a constant, eminently dance-able beats which they or MCs began rapping over through rhymes, and eventually sustained lyrics. In the South Bronx, the half-speaking, half-singing rhythmic street talk of 'rapping' grew into a cultural force known as Hip hop.[8] Hip Hop would become a multicultural movement in young black America, led by artists such as Kurtis Blow and Run-DMC.

In the 1980s, Michael Jackson's record-breaking success of his albums Off The Wall, Bad, and Thriller which currently remains the best-selling album of all time, transformed popular music and united all races, ages, and genders and would eventually lead a revolution helmed by successful crossover black solo artists including Prince, Lionel Richie, Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, and Janet Jackson. Pop and dance-soul of this era inspired New Jack Swing by the end of the decade.

Hip hop spread across the country and diversified. Techno, Dance, Miami bass, Chicago house, Los Angeles hardcore and Washington, D.C. Go Go developed during this period, with only Miami bass achieving mainstream success. But before long, Miami bass was relegated primarily to the Southeastern US, while Chicago house had made strong headways on college campuses and dance arenas (i.e. the warehouse sound, the rave). The DC go-go sound like Miami bass became essentially a regional sound that didn't muster much mass appeal. Chicago house sound had expanded into the Detroit music environment and mutated into more electronic and industrial sounds creating Detroit techno, acid, jungle. Mating these experimental, usually DJ oriented, sounds with the prevalence of the multi-ethnic New York City disco sound from the 1970s and 1980s created a brand of music that was most appreciated in the huge discothèques that are located in cities like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Boston, etc. Eventually, European audiences embraced this kind of electronic dance music with more enthusiasm than their North American counterparts. These variable sounds let the listeners prioritize their exposure to new music and rhythms while enjoying a gigantic dancing experience.

In the later half of the decade, from about 1986, rap took off into the mainstream with Run-D.M.C.'s Raising Hell and the Beastie Boys' Licensed To Ill which became the first rap album to enter No.1 Spot on the Billboard 200. Both of these groups mixed rap and rock together which appealed to rock and rap audiences. Hip Hop took off from its roots and the golden age hip hop flourished, with artists such as Eric B. & Rakim, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, and Salt-N-Pepa. Hip Hop became popular in America until the 1990s when it became worldwide. The golden age scene would die out in the by the early 1990s when gangsta rap and g-funk took over with west-coast artists NWA, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Ice Cube, east-coast artists Notorious B.I.G., Wu-Tang Clan, and Mobb Deep, and the sounds of urban black male bravado, compassion, and social awareness best represented by the complex rapper Tupac.

In 1988, all-black heavy metal band Living Colour achieved mainstream success with their début album Vivid, peaking at #6 on the Billboard 200, thanks to their Top 20 single "Cult of Personality". The band's music contained lyrics that attack the Eurocentrism and racism of America. A decade later, more black artists like Lenny Kravitz, Body Count, Ben Harper, and countless others would start playing rock again.

The 1990s and 2000s

Hip Hop, Rap, and R&B are the most popular genre of music for African Americans in this period.[citation needed]

Contemporary R&B, as the post-disco version of soul music came to be known as, remained popular throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Male vocal groups in the style of soul groups such as The Temptations and The O'Jays were particularly popular, including New Edition, Boyz II Men, Jodeci, Dru Hill, Blackstreet, and Jagged Edge. Girl groups, including TLC, Destiny's Child, and SWV, were also highly successful. TLC would go on to hold the title of the highest girl group with the highest selling female group album ever with their 1995 album CrazySexyCool influencing creativity in many young women around the world.

Singer-songwriters such as R. Kelly, Mariah Carey, Montell Jordan, were also significantly popular during the 1990s, and artists such as Mary J. Blige, Faith Evans, and Aaliyah popularized soul singing over hip-hop inspired beats, known as hip-hop soul. The Marvin Gaye/Stevie Wonder-inspired sound of D'Angelo would lead to the development of neo soul, popularized in the late 1990s/early 2000s by artists such as Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, Erykah Badu, India.Arie, Alicia Keys, and Musiq. During this period, according to one music writer, D'Angelo's critically acclaimed album Voodoo (2000) "represent[ed] African American music at a crossroads ... To simply call [it] neo-classical soul...would be [to] ignore the elements of vaudeville jazz, Memphis horns, ragtime blues, funk and bass grooves, not to mention hip-hop, that slip out of every pore of these haunted songs."[9]

By the 2000s, R&B had shifted towards an emphasis on solo artists with pop appeal, with Usher, [Alicia Keys]], and Beyonce being the most prominent examples. The line between hip-hop and R&B and pop became significantly blurred by producers such as Timbaland and Lil Jon and artists such as Missy Elliott and OutKast.

"Urban music" and "urban radio" are largely race-neutral today, [citation needed] terms which are synonymous with hip hop and R&B and the associated hip hop culture which originated in New York City.[citation needed] The term also reflects the fact that they are popular in urban areas, both within black population centers and among the general population (especially younger audiences).

The hip hop movements has become increasingly mainstream as the music industry has taken control of it.[citation needed] Essentially, "from the moment 'Rapper's Delight' went platinum, hiphop the folk culture became hiphop the American entertainment-industry sideshow."[10] As a result, the music that is popularized by the music industry is becoming increasingly different than what hip hop was meant to be[clarification needed], and in the process makes people[who?] wonder who is responsible for this unappreciated shift.[11]

Retro-soul and indie pop female singers such as Estelle, VV Brown, and Janelle Monae have emerged within the last few years. Also, genre-defying male musicians such as Van Hunt and Kenna continue to redefine African-American music.

Plans for a Smithsonian affiliated Museum of African-American music to be built in Newark, New Jersey and an R&B museum/hall of fame have been discussed within the last several years.[citation needed]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Southern 221
  2. ^ Southern 221-2, 294
  3. ^ Southern 266
  4. ^ Southern 291
  5. ^ Southern 288-9
  6. ^ Southern 285, 292
  7. ^ Southern 361
  8. ^ "THE ROOTS OF HIP HOP" - RM HIP HOP MAGAZINE 1986
  9. ^ "Review of Voodoo". NME: 42. February 14, 2000.
  10. ^ Tate, Greg. “Hip-hop Turns 30: Whatcha Celebratin’ For?” Village Voice. 4 January 2005.
  11. ^ YouTube - Hip Hop in Review: Part IV Who's Responsible?

References

  • The Music of Black Americans: A History'. Eileen Southern. W. W. Norton & Company; 3rd edition, (1997). ISBN 0-393-97141-4
  • Stewart, Earl L. (1998). African American Music: An Introduction. ISBN 0-02-860294-3.
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