Black Music Influence On American Culture

American history was radically changed when President Abraham Lincoln gave the very famous Emancipation Proclamation. This lead to the freedom of millions of African Americans who sought the same liberty and equality that was promised to everyone under the United States constitution. These liberties, of course, were not achieved right away. During the Reconstruction era, which is the decade right after the Civil War, many of the recently freed slaves did not have money, property, or credit. They could not buy the necessary things to enjoy their freedom, which lead to sharecropping, a glorified form of slavery. Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner lets a tenant use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land (Sharecropping).. Added on to this, facilities were segregated to prevent the black man from enjoying the same things as the white man due to Jim Crow laws which were enacted after the Reconstruction era. The struggle for equality and rights continued during the Gilded Age (1873-1900), the Progressive Era (1900-1920s), the Great Depression (1930s), WWII (1939-1945), the beginning of the Cold War (1947), up until the Civil Rights movement (1954-1968). At this point in history, African Americans fought for their rights and changed the course of American history. Music was a very important tool used by African Americans that helped achieve this. Ever since the slavery times, music was a big part of their culture

The rise of Soul music was a product of the particular environment of that time in which the musicians who created it lived, a period much paralleled with the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) and Black Power Movement (BPM) (Maultsby, 1983, 54). The objective of this research was to examine any existence of political and social messages delivered in Soul music around the civil rights movement era in America, which would lead to a better understanding of the role of Soul music having served in the process of political and social changes in the country.

From the Civil Rights Movement to the Black Lives Matter movement, music continue to be the expression of all that is contained in the movement. It shows the struggles, the passions, the history of the movements. It gives hope, brightens the day, rallies, and unifies the people of movements.

African American influence in music has been an ever present and controversial subject in American history. Stemming from many different cultures, religions and backgrounds, large portions of American music was introduced by, and credited to African Americans. Although in many cases, this music was used for entertainment by the masses or majority, contrary to popular belief, black music served a greater purpose than just recreation. Dating all the way back to the beginning of slavery in the U.S. during the 17th century, music has been used to make a statement and send a message. As African American music progressed over the years, there were common themes expressed as the genres evolved. It has been an open letter to the world, documenting and protesting the ongoing oppression faced by blacks in the United States, as well as an outlet for frustration. For many African Americans, the music gave them the only voice that couldn’t be silenced by their oppressors.

Commonly thought of as one of the most influential genres in black culture in the United States, Funk Jazz originated in the mid-1960s and was popularized throughout the 1970s & early 1980s. Characterized by electric sounds, a strong backbeat and an early use of analog synths, Funk-Jazz is a combination of Southern Soul, Funk & R&B influences mixed in with jazz. Musicians such as Lonnie Smith, Roy Ayers and Jack McDuff were instrumental in laying the foundation that set in motion events that would bring this genre to the forefront of pop culture. To this day, Funk-Jazz continues to thrive in many forms worldwide.

Throughout the history of this country, the music of African-Americans has remained a strong influence upon our society and culture. Beginning with the music carried over from Africa with the slaves, up until now, with the new styles created by urban youth today, African-Americans have retained certain elements within their music which makes it unique from any other musical form. Some of the musical forms which were created from, and/or were strongly influenced by afro-centric musical characteristics are: Hymnals, Gospel, Spirituals, Ragtime, the blues, and R&B. While many of these musical forms are still popular today amongst Blacks and Non-Blacks, jazz and hip-hop are arguably the two most widespread and

In a world increasingly inundated with apathy towards the social disparities in America, music serves an invaluable tool in conveying to the masses the importance of action and empathy. As Class on Class continually demonstrated, the power of music holds especially strong in impoverished America, where socioeconomic and racial violence is not only permitted to occur but actively conducted by institutions like the police force. The hip-hop and rap movements from the late 20th century catapulted the issues of inner-city African American communities, from drug abuse to police brutality, to center stage of America and continue to bring to attention the issues of socioeconomic disparities. Moreover, Tupac Shakur’s contributions to the rap movement,

In today’s day and age, it’s easy to hear black culture represented in most hip-hop; that is the dominating music genre that expresses African American views. It’s not so easy to remember where African Americans influence on music al began. Black influence on music today is really unrecognized but it’s important to bring to light just how much African Americans really have contributed to the sound, style, and feel of today’s music. Not just hip-hop or rap, but all kinds of music.

Rap music, also known as hip-hop, is a popular art form. Having risen from humble origins on the streets of New York City during the mid-1970s, hip-hop has since become a multifaceted cultural force. Indeed, observers say, hip-hop is more than just music. The culture that has blossomed around rap music in recent decades has influenced fashion, dance, television, film and—perhaps what has become the most controversially—the attitudes of American youth. For many rappers and rap fans during it’s early time, hip-hop provided an accurate, honest depiction of city life that had been considered conspicuously absent from other media sources, such as television. With a growing number of rap artists within this period, using hip-hop as a platform to call for social progress and impart positive messages to listeners, the genre entered a so-called Golden Age

“According to Baraka’s analysis, the musicians about whom the term was first used in the 1950s Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, and John Coltrane were drawing upon the distinctive call and response cadences of preacher and congregation and the frenzy of spirit possession characteristic of many African American church services. And they did so in conscious reaction and resistance to what they understood as the racist and therefore culturally and politically repressive condition in 1950s America. Especially they were aiming to restore vitality and authenticity to a music they felt had been tamed, or domesticated, and finally stolen for profitable mass distribution and consumption by a fundamentally racist culture industry, the music industry, serving fundamentally racist society”.(Joel Rudinow

From it's inception, rap indured a lot of hostility from listeners--many, but not all, White--who found the music too harsh, monotonous, and lacking in traditional melodic values. However, millions of others--often, though not always, young African-Americans from underprivileged inner city backgrounds--found and immediate connection with the style. Here was poetry of the

The early vernacular traditions didn’t only consist of religious, spiritual, and sacred practices, but there were secular forms of acts that existed in their lives. The early African Americans composed many superb narrative rhymes that really influenced the culture today. They could also be known as poets, and these writers created a foundation for the modern day artists. The different stories and tales that these passages were describing, had a strong impact on the blues, which is a part of the secular songs. Rap, a modern day form of rhyming music, has been influence greatly by the earlier secular songs and stories that the African Americans practiced. These songs started out as humor for the African Americans, and then sporadically evolved into sex, violence, and drugs over the past century. The children’s games song also has special meaning to them when they are used. The little messages that are implanted in these songs really try to impact a message to the listener. The different songs also portrayed the ongoing violence and abuse that is present in the American society. The hardworking slaves also had a series of songs that they sang, in order to express their hardships and perseverance in the work

Most soul music is related with the civil war or the harsh times that african americans went through as times passed and things were starting to change.

The genre of music known as Rhythm and Blues (R&B) came to the forefront of the music world in the mid-1950 's. This genre of music still incorporated the tempo and the soulful sound of the blues, however, it placed more emphasis on the lyrical aspect of the songs and less on the instrumental aspect. As time went on R&B began to shape until reaching its most perfect form in the 1990’s. This decade ushered in musical acts such as Boyz II Men, Aaliyah, Keith Sweat, Maxwell, and Erykah Badu. Music does a good job of influencing the society that surrounds it. The R&B of the 1990’s specifically influenced the black community by promoting the ideologies that are already deeply hidden within the culture. Ideologies such as passionate love, self-expression through fashion, family connectedness and emotional vulnerability are all topics that are dissected through this genre of music. Before 1990’s R&B, people within the black community conformed to the things that society thought to be acceptable for people of color. That all changed when this new era was ushered in, people began to march to the beat of their own drums. Although 90’s music is a thing of the past, the impact that it has made in regards to black culture can still be seen today in the form of new artists, social issues, and current trends.

    William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, author, writer and editor. He is an important figure in both African American history and in American Literature, who is widely recognized for his pursuit of social justice and literary imagination. He was influenced to write The Souls of Black Folk, a non-fiction seminal work in the history of sociology, in 1903 in order to explain the problem of the Twentieth Century, the color-line. This is the backbone of the book, the core of it’s charm, and what makes it an important American Literature book under the realist paradigm.