Sources, Scholarship, and Historiography (Garland Encyclopedia)
The Legacy of the Blues People: A Historiography of African American Music
Transcript of The Legacy of the Blues People: A Historiography of African American Music
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Table Of Content
1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 4
2. Lawrence Levine and Black Agency…………………………………………………………………………………...Page 5
3. The Change in African American Music Scholarship…………………………………………………………..Page 6
4. Amiri Baraka’s Blues People……………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 7
5. White Appropriation and its Many Questions…………………………………………………………………..Page 10
6. Jewish Cooperation or exploitation…………………………………………………………………………………..Page 10
7. Jazz Music…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 12
8. Beyond Baraka, Paul Gilroy……………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 14
9. Beyond Baraka, Ronald Radano………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 17
10. New Histories and Theories on Jazz Music………………………………………………………………………..Page 19
11. The Blues People………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 21
12. Hip-‐Hop…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 21
13. Thelonious and Jay Z…………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 24
14. Land of the Blues………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 25
15. The Jazz People………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 26
16. The Space is the Place………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 28
17. The Spirituals……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 29
18. Race Music……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 30
19. Gender and the Music………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 33
20. Hip-‐Hop Scholarship, origins to the Present……………………………………………………………………..Page 34
21. The End!?..............................................................................................................................Page 36
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It is likely that music was originally developed by peoples around the world as a way to convey
raw emotions, yet in the past century many use it as a way to make large profits. African American
music, as it will be argued in this analysis, has been greatly exploited in the United States, alongside its
African American creators.1 Throughout the centuries African Americans have had few public avenues to
express the honest emotional turmoil they experienced as a result of living stressful lives mired in
cultural prejudice and economic depression. Day to day stresses, bred by acts of violence (Both from the
outside as well as within these communities), as well as other forms of oppression and suppression,
created an intense atmosphere that was at times defused with the help of various forms of music.
Throughout the 20th century African Americans have developed, nurtured, and performed
various genres of music within the American canon. African American music has been interpreted in
more recent times as a uniquely authentic American sound. Scholars have attempted to write
comprehensive histories on African American music throughout that century to the present. The type of
scholarship used when examining this topic changed during that time, particularly during the 1960’s.
Works of scholars studying this subject such as like Amiri Baraka questioned the linking of African
American music mostly to Africa and the labeling of a specific genre as exclusively “African American,”
and thus began to broaden the scholarship. There have been voluminous works written on black music
since the 1960’s that have continued to re-‐examine the subject from numerous perspectives. The
methods used range from the asking of questions that hark back to Baraka, to the adding of questions to
his equation with a newer perspective, by eschewing his conclusions or asking completely different
questions all together. For generations, historians have grappled with the importance of African
American music to the African American communities it was being created for, as well as the greater
1 The analysis covers musical genres from the past century that have mostly been equated with African American musicians. Many terms have been used to label the music created by African Americans such as “race music,” “negro music,” and “black music.” The entirety of the music will be termed as African American music in this analysis.
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American society. The blues, jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, soul, and hip hop have been written
about extensively by historians, musicologists, ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, critics, performers,
fans, and many more academic professionals. This analysis is a synthesized historiography of African
American music.
African American musical traditions have been traced back to the continent of Africa, which
poses a unique challenge to those looking for the roots of these traditions. Historians have been
attempting to find agency due to the lack of traditional primary sources connecting these African
musical traditions with African American musical traditions. Scholars have been attempting to locate this
agency, or at least attempt to explain its various modes, since the later part of the decade of the 1970s.
One of the most prominent works tracing the link between African and African American musical
traditions is Lawrence Levine’s masterpiece on black culture titled, Black Culture, Black Consciousness.2
Levine’s work is very important in the essentialism of the African American music debate due to his firm
opinion that elements of African American music could be traced directly back to the African continent.
Levine strongly believed in the concept that tracing its lineage both defines and separates “African
American” and “white” music. Various historians have presented similar arguments using Levine’s claims
to bolster their own. Others have attempted to challenge Levine by asserting that once the traditions
from Africa were fused with others in the United States the link to the African connection was severed
and lost.
In his seminal work, Levine argues that black history and culture can only be fully understood
seeing it through their own cultural prism. He supports his argument through an exhaustive analysis of
slavery to post slavery, songs, folk tales, proverbs, and other anecdotes used by slaves that trace back to
the African continent and its various cultural aspects. Levine writes that the slaves “shared a
2 Levine, Lawrence. Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-‐American folk thought from Slavery to Freedom. Oxford University Press, 1977.
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fundamental outlook toward the past, present, and future and common means of cultural expression
which could well have constituted the basis of a sense of common identity and world view capable of
withstanding the impact of slavery.”3
This same type of connection between the African American and African modes of music has
been used time and again by many historians and musicologists to explain the essence of the music. One
of the first extensive analytical histories of Hip Hop was written with this very specific common bond in
mind. David Toop’s book Rap Attack, originally published in 1984, traces the various black musical and
cultural traditions through the sounds of urban areas, New York City in particular, but he also traces it
further back to Africa.4 He alludes to this view specifically when he writes that “Rap’s forbearers stretch
back through disco, street funk, radio DJs, Bo Diddley, the bebop singers, Cab Calloway, Pigmeat
Markham, the tap dancers and comics, the Last Poets, Gil Scott Heron, Muhammad Ali, acapella and
doo-‐wop groups, ring games, skip-‐rope rhymes, prison and army songs, toasts, signifying and the
dozens, all the way to the griots of Nigeria and Gambia.”5 These connections are all part of the same
pattern in each one of these musical genres in that they all trace back to this African influence while
reimagining the style and methods due to the place, space and specific time of the music’s beginnings.
Levine’s work was highly influential, yet it should be noted that he was influenced by Amiri Baraka, the
first scholar to write about this connection in the early 1960’s.
By the 1960’s and 1970’s more histories were written, mostly due to the change over time as
jazz kept evolving as well as the beginnings of new musical forms of expression. The historians who
wrote those histories tended to focus on a linear progression of jazz from its alleged origins to its
modern form. These books were broad, written as a generalized history that is regionally sensitive all of
them pointing to New Orleans as the location of the genesis of jazz music. They then traced its gradual 3 Ibid. p. 4. 4 Toop, David. Rap Attack #3: African Rap to Global Hip Hop. Serpent’s Tail, 2000. 5 Ibid. p.19.
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migration, with the artists moving into new urban settings. Most, if not all of these writers, portray
bebop as sheer rebellion, where its artists felt stifled by the system. They would describe rebelling
musicians as living reclusive lives, setting up small jam sessions in small and obscure performance spaces
and away from the white public spheres. This rebellion dealt a concerted blow to the older African
American musical generation by establishing a new musical form that went against the older and more
established modes. The reclusive hipster was the most frequent image conveyed by these historians
when writing about bebop and its many performers. Many of these writers were white men, mostly
Jews who were either fans or fans with an academic bent. There were a few African American critics and
intellectuals who had written about jazz as well by this point, including Amiri Baraka and A.B. Spellman.
Amiri Baraka’s (Penned under his former name Leroi Jones) seminal masterpiece Blues People
changed the existing pattern of writing about African American music.6 Baraka provided a sweeping
connection spanning from the slave ships all the way to the early 1960s with blues and jazz in opposition
to the tedious chronological treatise, such as the many anthologies and reference books written on
African American music. He argued that new forms of music, in this case blues and jazz, were concerted
racial efforts made by black musicians. To Baraka these are purely African American musical genres that
could only exist due to the African American’s being under the burden of racial oppression. The reason
he uses blues people in the title is because he feels as if whites have appropriated jazz, causing it to lose
credibility with African American listeners. Blues, on the other hand, personifies the black experience
hence the title being blues people.
Before Amiri Baraka published Blues People in 1961 many of the early histories did not fully
explore the history of African American music. Since the publication of his work a historical context has
been added where the music has a past that has changed with the times. Baraka’s contribution changed
6 Baraka, Amiri. Blues People: Negro Music in White America. Harper Collins, 1963.
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the scope and style of writing on African American music. The writing was no longer a series of facts,
names and dates, but rather a broader analysis including racial factors. As seen before his work, many
writers gave their own perspectives that were influenced by stereotypes projected on their experiences
with African Americans. This means that they tended to write along with their beliefs of authentic
African American behaviors and tradition of oppression. Most of these writers were white, so they saw
themselves as the champions of presenting this presumed authentically black sound to the greater
white audience. They viewed themselves as hip for being included in a music scene that the greater
white population didn’t understand, nor did they care to. Baraka’s work changed the way the music was
written about because he was an African American and a product of the tumultuous decade of the
1960's in the United States. His book argues for the essentialism of the music and its purely African
American roots, whether writing on jazz or the blues. In his work he speaks of African Americans and
how they are a specific group and no other groups, especially whites, can actualize the music because
they are not members of that group. “Blues authenticity depends upon group membership. While
cultural outsiders can sing the blues, it should be understood that what is being sung in these cases is a
variant of a cultural expression derived from a very different kind of experience.”7 Baraka writes that the
word blues connotes what he terms the true Negro authenticity where it not only means the music but
the life experience as well. The blues is far more significant when African Americans perform the art
because they are doing it through empirical knowledge as opposed to other groups who are merely
copying while projecting their own collective experiences. Baraka’s call for essentialism and the quest
for authenticity have been sought by the various authors spanning the century and coming from various
facets of professions, backgrounds, and ways of life. The essentialist quality of the argument furthers
the notion that once it becomes part of the white culture, it will be defanged or blanched. The
7 Eds. Steinberg, Jesse and Abrol Fairweather. Blues -‐ Philosophy for Everyone: Thinking Deep About Feeling Low. John Wiley & Sons Publications, 2012. p.47.
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“whitening” of jazz music resulted in a more watered down version of it, leading to a larger commercial
appeal through the genre of swing music.
The book is unapologetically scathing in its critique of white theft as opposed to addressing the
cooperation or joint participation among African Americans and white musicians. Baraka’s work traces
the evolutionary path of black music while particularizing the fact that it was all originated by African
Americans only to be stolen from them by the white musicians and businessmen who would go on to
earning fame and money African American musicians never saw. Baraka’s conclusion was that being
African American gave one little opportunities in the music business, while being white entitled one to
an easy path comparatively. These factors, according to Baraka, changed jazz music from the early
sound of orchestral groups to the high period that was dominated by the more sterile swing music.
Baraka also concluded that once this occurred, African Americans became bored with the music and
went on to create new and different music. Historians would constantly revisit Baraka’s work when
exploring the phenomenon of black music.
The debates surrounding Baraka’s notions of African American music as a unique form have
become rather heated. The debates for the essentialist interpretation of African American music
conform to Baraka’s viewpoint. These arguments stem from the idea that the specific traits of African
American music in America trace back to the African continent. This argument reinforces the idea that in
the United States, slaves, as well as free blacks, were not devoid of their African roots. On the other
hand it becomes a problematic argument due to the thought process going along with it that
essentialism lumping behaviors, pathologies, and other stereotypical ideas are blurred into peoples
realities. The folk notion can invoke a sense of nostalgia while depicting African Americans through, at
times racist, stereotypes, meaning that the larger, mostly white, population will have a vision that could
perpetuate negative racial constructs. The example of this being that there is a specifically authentic
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African American sound, and that African Americans have this tendency inherently. As a result, the
talent conveys a sense of authentic American music and culture.
Certain debates in the scholarship focus on the nature of the relationships between the artists,
or music makers, and the producers and owners of the means of production. In most cases the music
makers were black and the owners of the means were white, and this remains the same up to the
present day. What were their motives, on both ends, and for what reasons and under what conditions
was the music made? Were black artists purely exploited and cheated out of the real financial gain and
wider public notoriety? Or were they cooperating with the whites in order to excel both with the art
form of the music as well as profit in whichever way they could? Many historians, and countless other
brands of writers, either stand on one side of this vast chasm, or the more modern approach of standing
somewhere in the middle while explaining that it was a combination of both factors.
The rise of scholarship and the demand for far more investigation has been on the rise for the
past few decades covering the relationship between Jewish Americans and African Americans in the
realm of music entertainment in America. Most of these histories have focused on political cooperation,
but there are a growing number of books being written on this cooperation within the realm of music.
These historians point to the large number of Jewish personalities spread across the history as
participants in the creation of African American music. Historians also explore the spread of mass appeal
being provided with the help of various dynamic record label owners and producers, who were mostly
Jewish men, and how they worked so well with the mostly black artists. The question of whether these
specific personalities were all Jewish, and why they were all Jewish comes up frequently. Through much
research in books of interviews and oral testimonies it seems that these Jews felt akin to the African
American culture and were more open to its malleability. Jews in America were also considered second-‐
class citizens for some time in the early part of the twentieth century.
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Due to this outsider status Jews were interested and also committed to forging relations with
other outsider groups such as the African American communities. This idea of shared oppression
resonates throughout the 20th century, although by the end of the 1960s visible cracks in the relations
became very apparent. Various historians, musicologists, ethnomusicologists, and Judaic Studies
scholars have written on the hidden role of Jews in American music. Recent historians have written on
the relationship between mostly Jewish producers, promoters, club owners and enthusiasts and African
American musicians and performers such as Michael Billig,8 Michael Alexander,9 Jon Stratton,10 and
Jeffery Melnick.11 Many of these books do mention those relationships, at times in mere passing but at
other times great emphasis is put on these special relationships. However, most of the books name the
many Jewish personalities without emphasizing the connection they had with African Americans, or
eschewing it due to the issue not being a primary focus of the material. The amount of Jews who
participated in this phenomenon, as well as the nature of the connection they developed with their
African American partners, should be explored further in this field. It can be said for certain that the
relationship is complex and while cooperation and collaboration existed, the Jews still had the privilege
of being racially designated as white, especially in the post World War II period. The consensus presents
a strong and resounding bond when it comes to musical production by a people who seem to be living
on the margins of the American dream.
Out of the various genres that have been associated with African American music, jazz has been
written about the most. Its earliest forms spanning from the proto-‐jazz era in the late 19th century, as
well as its later acceptance by the white audience, has been chronicled by many writers. It is seen as the
melting pot portrayed through music and a projection of true American life. Historians, as well as critics,
8 Billig, Michael. Rock ‘n’ Roll Jews. Syracuse University Press, 2000. 9 Alexander, Michael. Jazz Age Jews. Princeton University Press, 2003. 10 Stratton, Jon. Jews, Race and Popular Music. Ashgate Books, 2009. 11 Melnick, Jeffrey. A Right to Sing the Blues: African Americans, Jews and American Popular Song. Harvard University Press, 2001.
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composers, musicologists, ethnographers, archivists, artists and many other professionals have all
written extensively on the history of jazz. The scholarly obsession with jazz is interesting due the sheer
volume of works being written on jazz to this very day. The earliest literature dating back to the turn of
the century spanning to the 1950s was mostly written by critics and avid fans of the music. These
people, mostly white men (and a good number of whom were Jewish), would write in trade magazines,
and other fan based published print materials. These were not scholarly-‐based articles published in
journals instead they were mostly written by the fans for the fans, as well as the growing consumer
audience. They would later take on the task of pinpointing the origins of the music by championing the
evolution of the art from the early masters, to the popularity of swing music, to the rise in large multiple
instrument orchestras, to the change into bebop and beyond. There were several African American
intellectuals who wrote on the music as well at this time, stemming from the Harlem renaissance,
including Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison’s essays on jazz. The newest and most definitive collection of
Ellison’s essays were compiled in a new book and edited by Robert G. Omeally.12 Ellison is so enamored
by the music that his magnificent book, Invisible Man, has the vibe of jazz rhythm flowing beautifully
with the words and images on the pages. Most recently Horace A. Porter wrote about Ellison’s
influences in the jazz world and how it was mutual and reciprocated among the musicians he wrote
about.13
Historians’ writing in the decade of the 1990’s explored both the racial and cultural dynamics
behind jazz music. The reinterpretation and exploration comes from various authors pushing the ideas
into new realms such as with the book of essays edited by Reginald T. Buckner and Steven Weiland.14 In
this book, the various historians give new meanings to old histories such as the reinvention of artists
12 Ed. Omeally, Robert G. Living With Music: Ralph Ellison’s Jazz Writings. Random House, Inc. 2001. 13 Porter, Horace A. Jazz Country: Ralph Ellison in America. University of Iowa Press, 2001. 14 Eds. Buckner, Reginald T. and Steven Weiland. Jazz in Mind: Essays on the History and Meanings of Jazz. Wayne State University Press, 1991.
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through autobiographies, as well as the importance of space, place, and time to the specific musicians.
The book acknowledges the many different writers’ backgrounds and how "Jazz writing is perhaps most
familiar to general readers in the performance or record review, though the lasting ones are typically
occasions for a statement about the direction of a particular career. Yet the more extended study of jazz
periods, styles, and performers is flourishing."15
Books of essays have been compiled in an attempt to understand the full breadth of these
genres and this includes hip-‐hop music. By the decade of the 1990s Hip Hop had established itself as a
formidable musical genre and style much to the chagrin of the critics who dismissed it as a passing fad.
Many compilations were beginning to be published on this specific form of music, including one edited
by William Eric Perkins on a swath of subjects within hip hop culture.16 The collection of essays is
separated into three sections, with each section containing a variety of essays on sub-‐topics. The essays
cover issues such as white involvement in hip hop, Latino and Hispanic influences, the link with dance
culture, and hip-‐hop as a global phenomenon. They are all very critical and mostly written by journalists
who unlock these micro issues that have never been written about before. A more recent hip hop
reader has been published which explores the issue in further detail from an array of authors, including
historians, who discuss other issues such as specific artists, songs, and issues on the music especially
with regards to space, place and time.17 These books of essays shine a light on the more obscure issues
within the music and its many characteristics, as well as its growing salience within American and
beyond.
Various Historians have built upon Baraka’s ideas while adding their own modern
interpretations on black music. Paul Gilroy is extremely influential and his article about writing on black
15 Ibid. p.15. 16 Ed. Perkins, William Eric. Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture. Temple University Press, 1996. 17 Eds. Forman, Murray and Mark Anthony Neal. That’s the Joint! The Hip-‐Hop Studies Reader. Routledge, 2004.
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music has given historians new methods of analyzing and defining African American music.18 He argues
that the essentialist trap has hampered many historians, musicologists, ethnomusicologists, and African
American cultural theorists by applying universal traits to the black race. Past scholars placed African
American music outside of American culture while signifying different meanings to its many audiences.
He asks, “How are we to think critically about artistic products and aesthetic codes that have been
somehow changes either by passage of time or by their displacement, relocation, or dissemination
through wider networks of communication and cultural exchange?”19
Paul Gilroy, as well as other historians covered in the analysis, use Baraka’s description of
African American music as a “changing-‐same” while challenging some of his essentialist ideas about
what does and does not represent “authentic” black music. Gilroy is very influential on the
historiography because he argues for further discussion on black music with sensitivity to the changing
qualities of music. There should be a new method of analysis and discussion with a conscious effort to
include all various types of genres as well as their evolutions over spans of time and space. He points to
the history of black dislocation reaching back to slavery and the transcontinental movements nurturing
distinct cultural developments. He also dismisses the unifying force behind a distinct black music due to
the passage of time and displacement over long periods. He argues by example that musical forms like
hip hop constantly shift from culture to culture and signify very different meanings. This form of cultural
mixing allows other ethnic groups to use this specific format to recapture a lost identity.
The question then lingers of whether is it still a purely African American genre of music, or do its
roots become interchangeable and racially pluralistic? Gilroy writes on how black music has been seen
as an oddity by white audiences due to contradictions between an authentic African American
performance and a perception of the same by a white audience. He made this case by using the example 18 Gilroy, Paul. “Sounds Authentic: Black Music, Ethnicity, and the Challenge of a Changing Same.” Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 11, No. 2, 1991. 19 Ibid. p.111.
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of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and the confusion of the critics asking if this is “authentic” African American
music. The Jubilee Singers were seen as an anomaly traversing the tough terrain of racism while
performing at various venues and open spaces. Andrew Ward’s book on the singers agrees with Gilroy’s
argument on the perceived authenticity of these singers by the largely white viewing audience.20 This
made African Americans frightened by the prospect of being popular through the newest cultural
mediums by playing “authentic” African American characters to white audiences.
The perpetuating stereotypes of race have been challenged as well with histories about various
African American music and musical genres. Through different books about music, historians have
questioned the universals regarding African American music and the way the larger white population
views the music. Andrew Ward’s book on the Fisk Jubilee Singers has covered their phenomenon as well
as the surprise of their presentation to the greater audiences. They went through many hardships being
mistreated under the harsh realities of racism, yet they persevered and amassed a large following
including the President of the United States. The book shows how the singers shattered the notions of
how people viewed blacks and how they believed they acted as well as performed.
Historians have attempted to portray the various thoughts by the many jazz musicians over the
decades concluding that they are products of their time and environments. Eric Porter’s book focuses on
the jazz musicians themselves and their intellectual and political input.21 According to Porter these
artists perceived jazz through a dualistic lens of interpretation. African American performers and
intellectuals attempted to overthrow the yolk of race while simultaneously “celebrating aspects of
African American life and culture.”22 This duality is constant in his book where the idea of the changing
sameness is prevalent. Through the art form of jazz they invoke the music as “a culturally, spiritually,
20 Ward, Andrew. Dark Midnight When I Rise: The Story of the Jubilee Singers, Who Introduced the World to the Music of Black America. HarperCollins, 2001. 21 Porter, Eric. What is This Thing Called Jazz? African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and Activists. University of California Press, 2002. 22 Ibid. p.xiv.
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militantly black expression.”23 Many of the artists in the book reflect on the fact that it is through the
performance of the music that they felt a sense of empowerment and pride. This sense of pride led to
ideals of perseverance and unity within the African American community as well as greater liberal
causes that affected the entire country.
Gilroy also provides examples of cultural curiosities that strike against a purely black sound,
using the example of the all black Washington DC punk group Bad Brains. He does this in order to show
the complexity of African American music and that all too often people view specific musical forms
through a racialized lens. Other historians have chronicled these anomalies including how oppressive it
feels to be seen as a rarity in a preconceived white sound, in this case rock and roll. Maureen Mahon’s
account of the Black Rock Coalition follows these African American performers and how stifled they feel
due to the setbacks of being passed over by white corporate heads. To the white corporate structure
these types of investments are seen as a loss due to the lack of marketability to the greater audiences.
African Americans, who were prolific in the early development of rock music, are reclaiming an art form
in their own right and through their own resources as seen in other genres as well. This type of analysis
is constantly evolving and Gilroy writes that historians and scholars alike keep learning from the specters
of music’s past.
An early example of a history of rock and roll is Charlie Gillett’s book, The Sound of the City: The
Rise of Rock and Roll published in 1970. The book provides the reader with a litany of details regarding
the rise and evolution of Rock music.24 He presents the music as constantly evolving and then regressing
back into its more primitive state as a sign of a return to purity. He notes how essential African
Americans were to the spread of the music and how it provided them for the first time with a broader
audience and appeal. By presenting the various forms of making songs, the various backgrounds and
23 Ibid. 24 Gillett, Charlie. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll. De Capo Press, 1970.
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styles of rock and roll delivery are numerous. The book also presents his argument that all these styles
were place and space specific and in this case it was the cities and urban centers that nurtured rock and
roll. His conclusion is reminiscent of the many historians covered as he writes that, "The revolutions that
rock 'n' roll started in the fifties have not come to a halt, so that it is not yet possible to say whether
things are back where they were, or whether some real change has been achieved. In many ways, things
look more like the conditions of the pre-‐rock 'n' roll era than they should if change really has been
effected."25 This book was published at the end of the decade of the 1960s, foreshadowing the evolution
of the music as well as the loss of interest by African Americans in creating new rock and roll, as Baraka
mentioned in his book.
Most recently, historians have questioned Baraka’s theory of essentialism mostly focusing on
the work of Ronald Rodano and his theories on music. Along with other scholars, Rodano has argued
against essentialism and the continuity of black traditions coming from the African continent. In
response to the historiography, and closer to Paul Gilroy’s analysis, Radano’s book, Lying Up a Nation:
Race and Black Music, challenges the field by rejecting the essentialist and racial binaries. The book
challenges the pervasive view of “an immutable black musical essence that survives apart from the
contingencies of social and cultural change.”26 The book challenges the way these views universalize the
idea of black music either being authentically black or rather a hybrid with no definite roots or origins.
While these essentialist histories provide new outlets for serious attention to an untouched field they
often place “Afro-‐centric” music outside of the American cultural mainstream. Radano argues that this
trend has rationalized the downgrading of African American music to a lower status for musicologists,
ethnomusicologists, and historians. He builds on the alternate view set by Paul Gilroy of defining music
as an unstable, socially contingent expression, and resituates within a diversity of black social and
25 Ibid. p.339. 26 Radano, Ronald. Lying Up a Nation: Race and Black Music. University of Chicago Press, 2003. p. 3.
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historical encounters. Along with racial and cultural theorists African American music, according to
Radano, has always been in the mainstream and an integral part of American culture. He decries the
idea of essentialist theory because it leaves you choosing between “a black exclusivist or a liberal
pluralism that imagines music as separate but equal.”27
Radano successfully weaves through various primary sources to present a historically grounded
look at musicology. Through exhaustive research he provides the reader with many voices from the past
and their perceptions and interpretations of African American music. He uses these sources while citing
many historians and black cultural theorists such as Ira Berlin, Philip Morgan, and George Fredrickson.
While citing these historians he dwells within the fabric of these cultural theorists like Stuart Hall,
Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Michel Foucault. These intellectuals help Radano weave back and forth
between historical facts and effective interpretations. Radano manages to shun the absolutist look of
either essentialism or cultural hybridism by chastising the Eurocentric view that scholars have taken for
some time. These double encounters, as he cites from W.E.B. DuBois’s book The Souls of Black Folk, gave
African-‐Americans the chance to create amidst the pains of oppression and repression. Much of the
present scholarship has used this model to include different views of these contentious arguments.
The newest scholarship heavily favors chronicling moments in time such as specific eras, time
periods of prodigious musical innovation, and specific spheres of influence and creativity. These
historians are interested in the intriguing racial interactions and musical progressions in specific
locations such as a particular city, town, street corner, or club, not to mention a specific time period in
American history. By the 1990’s, and into the present, histories have become more narrowly framed,
where scholars began to pinpoint very specific places, time frames, and thematic approaches when
writing on African American music. This shift is very important as these books focus on the
27 Ibid. p.44.
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interchangeable nature of the music and the particular musicians. They are also very relevant because
they present fluidity in race relations while challenging the rigid structures that certain historians view
as fact.
These micro histories are specific to locations such as Kansas City, New York City, Chicago, and
many more cities. More specifically historians began to expand on sections of these cities, narrowing
them down to very specific locations such as Basin Street in Chicago or 52nd Street in New York City.
Patrick Burke’s study of the 52nd Street establishments opens the eyes to a racially mixed public space
where musicians cooperated and played different styles of music, and also presented different
behaviors of perceived African American authenticity.28 At that moment in time Burke chronicles the
various performers who ran the gamut on content ranging from the comedic performances of Stuff
Smith to the John Kirby Sextet and Maxine Sullivan. Kirby and Sullivan were very different de-‐
emphasizing the showman for a serious musical performance. Unlike Smith who "took on aspects of this
[black] stereotype, working from within it to project a more affirmative vision of black musicianship,
[Maxine] Sullivan hoped to step outside of it altogether.”29 Unfortunately, the era of 52nd Street was far
too short, yet it was very important in reinterpreting the genesis and continuation of various genres
splintering from traditional jazz.
Certain breeding grounds for the specific genres of music have been studied further including
specific public spheres like specific streets in certain cities. Kathy Ogren wrote about this in her book on
the meaning of jazz in Harlem during the decade of the 1920’s. Paul Anderson has also written recently
on the musical proliferation during this same time period in the same space, Harlem, through the
various oral testimonies by the local population, political and religious leaders, and most importantly the
28 Burke, Patrick. Come Hear the Truth: Jazz and Race on 52nd Street. University of Chicago Press, 2008. 29 Ibid. p.102.
20
musicians themselves.30 Scott Saul’s book on jazz and the 1960’s is also as informative while placing the
many works by the masters during the tumultuous time period.31 He writes on the works of Max Roach,
John Coltrane, and Charles Mingus while emphasizing the militant aspect of the culture during this great
time of political and social change. Their works written by the end of the 1950’s stretching to the end of
the 1960’s shows the influence of the Civil Rights movement, the Black Power movement, and the
counterculture movement on jazz music and its creators.
Many historians also began to focus on specific time periods and places, as exemplified by the
books of William H. Kenney,32 Kathy Ogren,33 and Lewis A. Erenberg.34 Kenney’s book focuses on the
period of time in Chicago in the 1920’s and 1930’s and the various spaces where Jazz was played. He
notes that the city was a breeding ground for creativity as well as racial cooperation when it came to
playing music in public spheres. He claims that the city was far more integrated at the time due to the
black and tan establishments created by Chicago’s dynamic structure and attitudes in the early part of
the 20th century. These venues of entertainment were racially mixed at times, yet they did not last long
due to the authority of city and police officials.
The same trend is occurring with the blues as the newer classes of graduating historians have
written on the specific conditions from which the music originated. As noted earlier, R.A. Lawson’s book
argues strongly that the Jim Crow conditions were a harbinger for the creation of the blues sound and its
true drive. These conditions allowed for the suffering, which in turn gave birth to this specific style of
music. Another book written the same year argues that representatives from the burgeoning record
companies, as well as folklorists, were to blame in racializing music. To the musicians in the south, both
30 Anderson, Paul. Deep River: Music and Memory in Harlem Renaissance Thought. Duke University Press, 2001. 31 Saul, Scott. Freedom Is, Freedom Ain’t: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties. Harvard University Press, 2005. 32 Kenney, William H. Chicago Jazz: A Cultural History, 1904-‐1930. Oxford University Press, 1993. 33 Ogren, Kathy. The Jazz Revolution: Twenties America and the Meaning of Jazz. Oxford University Press, 1989. 34 Erenberg, Lewis A. Swinging the Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
21
white and black, music was an escape to better living, yet the type of music played was extremely
diverse. Unlike Lawson, who focuses on the blues, Karl Miller wrote on southern music as a whole and
the way this folk tradition was born. This tradition fed into the prevailing stereotypes while breaking
them down when it came to participation while playing music. Interestingly he writes that the southern
sound was fluid and the industry tainted the harmony among musicians by marketing separately to the
greater audience whatever the industry deemed white music and African American music. By grounding
the history of the three most lucrative financial streams for the recording industry, namely live
performance, recording and publishing, Miller links it to the modern day marketing schemes being used
by the industry in the guise of popular music networks on television and beyond.35 Not only has the
scholarship expanded it also saw a new musical genre’s emergence onto the scholarly and popular
scenes.
Historians have written on hip-‐hop culture and its formation in the streets and designated
spaces. These street parties and gatherings were essential to the evolution and proliferation of this
music scene. Hip Hop in its infancy was seen as a passing fad among much of the American population,
young African American teens excluded. African American youth flocked around to the various block
parties in the Bronx, as well as in Harlem, Brooklyn, and Queens, in order to hear these funk songs and
continuous loops of break beats to dance to. Critics and the classically trained historians and
musicologists did not see a traditional musical strand, but rather spoken word over a simple beat taken
from any song that was popular at the time.
However, the early period of hip-‐hop proved that these musicians were able to express
themselves with the little technology that was available to them. As Tricia Rose points out in her book
Black Noise, early pioneers of the art such as Grandmaster Flash and GrandWizzard Theodore invented
35 Miller, Karl Hagstrom. Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow. Duke University Press, 2010.
22
the technology themselves. 36 This allowed them to enhance the sound of the music, by using a mixer to
switch the music from one record to another, and by simply being able to scratch a record while another
is playing. This was all a quest for validity that began amongst these artist’s peers and later spread to
their broader audiences. Another common thread includes the reality that African-‐Americans were
given little to nothing with regards to musical resources. Due to this lack of resources they developed
and invented these new sounds with primitive technology that was tweaked by their creative minds in
innovative ways. These technological concoctions changed the way music was made from the street up
to the prestigious recording studios. Her book titled Black Noise, as well as her follow up aptly titled The
Hip Hop Wars, is very important and unique in that she does not offer a concise chronological history of
hip hop.37 Rather she presents hip hop through various thematic approaches such as technology, the
investigation of the urban landscape of New York City which was the breeding ground for hip hop, as
well as the racial and sexual politics of the music. Like the many historians who have written on African
American music she agrees that hip-‐hop, like all the other genres, has to be understood in its proper
context with regards to place, space and time. By using that background, it could become much easier to
understand the history of the music and its reasons for being.
These histories also provide a lot of information on crowd receptions of the music as well as
racial cooperation and learning from each other. Crowd reception has been very important because
many historians use written accounts taken by fans during live performances. Historians have gauged
the reactions of the audiences as the fan base grew more diverse and African American music
proliferated outward to the greater white public. Audience receptions are very important to historians
because they portray the process of African American music becoming a cultural signifier to increasingly
36 Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Wesleyan University Press, 1994. 37 Rose, Tricia. The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop -‐ and Why It Matters. Basic Books, 2008.
23
diverse audiences. Historians have written books on the various genres of African American music and
the racial lens African Americans and whites employ when listening to the music. Using Jazz as an
example, Jon Panish attempts to portray the very different views on Jazz by both whites and African
Americans over a long span of time.38 By exploring and researching the many texts written by both black
and white intellectuals, Panish comes to the conclusion that white writers tend to focus on the
individualism of the black jazz soloist and his suffering and victimization. Black writers on the other hand
try to emphasize on the capable musicianship, thorough performance abilities, and skilled and creative
improvisation. These writers also point to the traditional history of jazz as well as the communal aspect
of African American culture and the personal experiences they have within American culture and
society. Panish reaches to the black power movement where both black and white rebels began to
question the mainstream definition of Jazz music and racial conceptions.
Another aspect emerging from the recent scholarship has broken with Baraka in the sense that
it became more personal and intimate with the musicians and personalities in the music world. One
criticism leveled at Baraka’s Blues People is that he overlooks the artistry of particular individuals when
he implies that African American musicians could not help but naturally express their intrinsic
“blackness.” These newer histories are both rediscovery and reinterpretation of specific artists in the
canon of jazz history. The newer approach attempts to emphasize on the interchanging roles, including
the various contradictions and multiple roles, of these artists showing how they were both complex and
were products of their time, place, and environment.
There are many examples such as Eric Porter’s book mentioned above as well as a newer look at
the life of Thelonious Monk by Robin Kelley.39 Monk has been viewed as a genius eccentric who has
created some of the most prolific jazz compositions. However, he has also been painted as an unruly 38 Panish, Jon. The Color of Jazz: Race and Representation in Postwar American Culture. University of Mississippi Press, 1997. 39 Kelley, Robin. Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. Free Press, 2009.
24
and mentally unstable personality who lived in obscurity for quite some time. Kelley presents Monk as a
loveable musician influenced by jazz musicians, as well as various experimental classical composers.
Kelley tells the story of Monk, a man who fought his way up to the top and although his chord
progressions were viewed as eccentric he was still one of the greatest innovators of jazz music. The title
says it best with the claim that he was an American original eschewing the fact that he was African
American, and focusing on his talents as if they were a national treasure. These singular portraits of the
artists have narrowed the genres by presenting a person or group in the context of how much they
mean to the music world across the globe. Another book written at the same time period as Kelley’s is
an autobiography of a Brooklyn rapper who has a genuine American rags to riches story that would
make any conservative be proud and cringe with the same breath. Jay-‐Z is a formidable force in Hip Hop
and his book proves that he can tell his story (or history), as a poor kid growing up in the projects in
Brooklyn, his rise first through selling crack cocaine, and later as an MC.40 Through usage of his lyrics,
vivid images, accounts of past hustlers, athletes, black leaders, and praise for other rappers, Jay-‐Z
depicts a grim life where redemption is possible yet very hard to attain. He also speaks of the many
contradictions, as he weaves these stories with specific lyrics, within the racial power structure as well
as being a popular black male still being scrutinized by white society. Although both of these books are
very different, and were consumed by two very different audiences, they do in fact, tell a personal story
about musicians who were subject to racism, and remain on the fringe of society as African American
men in America.
Many books have been written about blues musicians, with one of the most detailed and
personal ones written by Samuel Charters.41 His book is a detailed chronicle of the many personal lives
of the greatest blues artists and their environments. Understanding their inner workings allows the
40 Jay-‐Z. Decoded. Spiegel & Grau, 2010. 41 Charters, Samuel. The Blues Makers. De Capo Press, 1991.
25
readers as well as scholars to reconsider the blues as far more complex then it was believed to be in
times past. In earlier days blues musicians were painted as simpletons who were performing a primitive
style of folk music. However, this book negates that old fashioned idea, while adding new information to
the cache, such as in the newer version’s introduction into the life of Robert Johnson. Still, like all these
genres of music the blues was first seen as a passing fad until it began to evolve further and become
electric and eclectic. Blues, like hip hop, received a lot of criticism from both whites and African
Americans, yet it became a mainstay in certain areas flourishing and nurturing what would become rock
and roll music. Also, blues performers made the music for themselves, as well as their families and local
communities, a phenomenon that remains to this day with hip hop.
The earliest histories of the blues portrayed the music as a folk art extended through a shared
experience of black men living in the south under the dire conditions of the black codes and Jim Crow
segregation. Early histories accumulate the stories about specific characters and personalities who
created and lived the blues. There were a few written accounts, yet the most pertinent ones were the
oral testimonies and the musical recordings. The recordings, such as the ones made by John Lomax, his
wife and their son Alan were, and remain extremely valuable to the canon. These recordings were made
for the Smithsonian’s Music and Folk division and were later compiled into a book written by Alan
Lomax.42 Like the book the recordings convey the raw emotions produced from the conditions that
facilitated the growth of such music. The sincere admiration expressed by Lomax propels the music to
new heights as he cheers the beauty that springs from the most oppressed parts of the country in the
post World War II period. As with other histories about the blues, Lomax’s book is region and space
specific and focuses on various parts of the south. Like Lomax Paul Oliver’s history makes this a focal
point of the account of the Blues and its origins.43 Originally written in the 1960s, the book notes the
42 Lomax, Alan. The Land Where the Blues Began. Delta Press, 1995. 43 Oliver, Paul. The Story of the Blues. Northeastern University Press, 1969.
26
migratory paths treaded by the many blues musicians who later became fixtures in many households,
African American households in particular. Robert Palmer’s book explores the blues as the bedrock of
American music and a direct descendent of rock and roll music.44 He takes the personality approach by
chronicling the lives of, according to him, the most important blues musicians and their contributions to
the world of music. For example he cites Muddy Waters as the man who electrified the blues in Chicago,
giving it a steady loud beat and having a direct influence on rock and roll. There are many more
accounts of the blues and more recent serious reinterpretations of it with the use of new evidence to
further explore the many facets of the blues, its origins and its many practitioners.
The prolific jazz music writers were expressing their passions for the new music in order to
legitimize it as well. They were not only writing for their peers, but also against the popular writings by
music scholars who denied the authenticity of jazz as a tangible art form. To the old guard, music was
clearly defined by the classical European modes they were so used to listening. This old guard included
critics, musicologists and historians who were steeped in classical notation and knowledge bestowed
upon them during their maturation in their respective fields. Many of these scholars carried certain
racial beliefs and, as being products of their times, they held certain racist attitudes fed by older
perceived stereotypes of African Americans. This battle allowed the newer writers to expand their
definitions of authentic American music through these written debates. These established historians in
the world of academia dismissed jazz, as well as the other genres of African American music, as a folk
art. One example of this account, as well as the origins, comes from Burton W. Peretti’s book on the
origins of jazz music.45 The book argues that due to negative stereotypes on black musician’s skills by
whites, jazz proliferated as a sense of rebellion against white culture. The author focuses on Chicago and
how groups of young musicians began to embrace not only jazz music, but African American culture as
44 Palmer, Robert. Deep Blues. Penguin Books, 1981. 45 Peretti, Burton W. The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race, and Culture in Urban America. University of Illinois Press, 1994.
27
well. Certain white performers were rebelling against society and dominant middle-‐class beliefs, and in
their struggles, they managed to develop early relationships with African-‐Americans.
Another common aspect in the writing is the presentation of black music as a fluid continuity
amidst the specific changes to the form. Some of the best examples were Burton Peretti’s The Creation
of Jazz and Scott DeVeaux’s The Birth of BeBop, both published in the 1990’s. Jazz was a hybrid coming
from various influences throughout the south, as well as around the world. Jazz went through various
changes and evolutions as well as revivals such as the Dixie land bands popping up in the late 1930’s and
early 1940’s. Rock and Roll is another interesting genre where African Americans helped change the
format while influencing the greater white audience, leading to many imitations and innovators. African
Americans had such a formidable role in creating the music and performing it for large audiences.
However, once it became commercialized and blanched by the late 1950’s early 1960’s African
Americans began to explore new ways of playing music. As the Beatles, and the rest of the wave of the
first “British Invasion,” swept through the United States African Americans were creating new styles of
music. Whether it was pop music in the guise of Motown Records, or soul and rhythm & blues with the
Atlantic Record label, or the more down south raw expression of Stax Records, Nashville sounds, and
Muscle Shoals to name a few, this was a natural progression.
Many historians have noted that these genres were all formidable, yet they only existed for a
specific time frame as well as being location dependent. In Peter Guralnick’s book, he chronicles soul
music as a moment in time never to be replicated with the same force and message as it was in the late
1950s and into the decade of the 1960s.46 He points out that this music, which is seen as purely
emotional coming from the gut, was far more complicated with racially intergraded musical groups as
well as producers all under these various music labels stemming from the success of Stax Records. Both
46 Guralnick, Peter. Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom. Back Bay Books, 1999.
28
the differences and common bonds brought these disparate musicians together making them feel like a
brotherhood or frat house that was more southern in character. In a way this book challenges Baraka’s
assertion on blackness of the music because both African Americans and whites created the music.
However, the constant evolution, depicted by the many genres created by African Americans, agrees
with Baraka’s assertions that the music is evolving at rapid speed due to the takeover by the white
powers that control the means of production.
Historians have also begun to challenge older notions of African American music and the sheer
concept of “spontaneity” when playing music, such as jazz. Jazz artists were accomplished musicians
working outside the perceived stereotypes of African American men. They are very complex due to their
straddling two worlds, the one of expected black behavior, and the other of their personal aspirations
and perceptions of music. There is also a challenge to the earlier concepts of the Bebop performer as a
recluse rebelling against the older guard. They did not all rebel, but rather respected past musical forms
from classical to early Dixie land jazz. They were very aware of the power structure in the music world
and both wanted to excel as talented musicians while still fitting a role in order to excel in the white
owned means of production. The book to portray all of these factors in fine details, along with
musicology, is Scott Deveaux’s book The Birth of Bebop.47 The author covers a wide range of time while
reconfiguring the evolution of bebop by portraying the various young artists involved as complicated
personas. They were not the iconoclasts portrayed in the past, but rather transient beings teetering
between the past and a look forward to the musical progression of jazz. Both the historical and musical
analysis shows that Bebop was a natural progression from the past musical heritage spanning from
classical music to the more modern swing and big band jazz combos. Bebop musicians were in the same
economic world with all types of musicians. "Mass-‐market capitalism was not a prison from which the
47 DeVeaux, Scott. The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History. University of California Press, 1997.
29
true artist is duty-‐bound to escape. It was a system of transactions that defined music as a profession
and thereby made their achievements possible."48
Religion, spiritual expression, and liturgical devotion have also been themes in certain histories
due to its poignant strength within the African American communities. Since the time of slavery, the
white authorities have allowed hymns, songs, and other types of communal lyrical or non-‐lyrical
expression. After slavery, the various black churches proliferated and out of that setting came various
strands of music, first with gospel and later with gospel influenced music such as soul and rhythm and
blues. Various books have discussed this theme such as Jerma Jackson’s book on the evolution, and
many challenges, of the gospel sound.49 The book is a chronological look at gospel from its origins in the
black churches and branding the music gospel in the 1890s -‐ 1920s, its rise to popularity, and the
tensions between the older tradition of restrained prayer and devotion and younger more vocal and
boisterous methods. "In the case of gospel, the boundaries of the color line would blur as men and
women wrestled with not only a variety of racial issues, but also the meaning of religion, the seductions
and elusiveness of fame and fortune, and the degree of control individuals and local communities could
exert over cultural traditions.”50
Other genres have gotten the same type of treatment where the author attempts to convey a
spiritual aspect, especially to the genres that seem rather irreligious to the casual observer. One of these
genres is hip hop where the content, attitudes, and cultural ramifications lead listeners to believe that
the music is devoid of a spiritual message, which is not entirely true. Anthony Pinn attempted to portray
the deeper religious meanings in his edited book of essays, which convey the various types of religious
48 Ibid. p.16. 49 Jackson, Jerma. Singing in My Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age. University of North Carolina Press, 2003. 50 Ibid. ps. 6-‐7.
30
outlets used by hip hop artists.51 These specific artists have used Christianity, Islam, Rastafarianism,
Humanism, as well as other non-‐denominational spirituality to convey a message through their music. In
the final essay of the book, written by Ralph C. Watkins, the author likens these artists to modern day
preachers writing, “Hip Hop artists as preachers create a dialogue among the faithful who listen to, and
repeat, the rhymes in their daily lives, allowing the lyrics to influence their religious worldview and how
they understand God."52 However, he notes that these artists eschew the institutional aspects of religion
making themselves the end all in their lyrics and music.
The perpetuating stereotypes of race have been challenged as well with histories about various
African American music and musical genres. Through different books about music, historians have
questioned the universals regarding African American music and the way the larger white population
views the music. Andrew Ward’s book on the Fisk Jubilee Singers has covered their phenomenon as well
as the surprise of their presentation to the greater audiences.53 They went through many hardships
being mistreated under the harsh realities of racism, yet they persevered and amassed a large following
including the President of the United States. The book shows how the singers shattered the notions of
how people viewed blacks and how they believed they acted as well as performed.
Other genres have also been explored such as the modern day rock and roll scene. By the late
1960’s African Americans began other genres while decreasing in output when it came to rock and roll.
The art they practically invented was abandoned for other types of music, most recently being hip-‐hop.
However, that is not the case as proved in Maureen Mahon’s book about her experiences with the Black
Rock Coalition.54 She writes that the American public has been far too long fed derogatory images of
51 Ed. Anthony Pinn. Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music. New York University Press, 2003. 52 Ibid. p.184. 53 Ward, Andrew. Dark Midnight When I Rise: The Story of the Jubilee Singers. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2000. 54 Mahon, Maureen. Right To Rock: The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race. Duke University Press, 2004.
31
African Americans in the 1980’s and 1990’s as she writes about, “The distressed poor, the drug-‐addled,
the highly sexed, the long suffering, the religiously devout, the good-‐time partyers, and occasionally
thrown in for variety, the middle-‐class professional.”55 However, she presents a different story through
her research and participation in the coalition, which promotes African Americans playing rock music.
The coalition, and other social networks, allowed these performers to break through the corporate
disinterest by using independent venues. Due to the rigid view of these corporate structures, African
American presentations are fixed as these images mentioned above and mostly focus on hip hop as the
most authentically contemporary African American sound.
The many different varieties of writers have focused on the racialization of African American
music because of its relevance in understanding the music and its context. With hip hop many historians
and cultural theorists have tackled this issue of race and its complexities within the music. Many of
these writers have attempted to analyze the interest, and at times almost fetishistic voyeurism, of the
white population in hip hop music. White interest is important due to white perceptions of blackness,
especially in poverty stricken urban areas, and how they interpret the music. Historians see that this
window, which can be opened and closed voluntarily, provides a vision of hyper-‐reality and overt hyper-‐
sexuality missing from their everyday lives. In his somewhat flawed book, Bakari Kitwana emphasizes
that the younger white population truly loves hip-‐hop.56 The reasons range from political solidarity to a
rebellion of their parents’ antiquated notions of race. The embrace of a multicultural viewpoint allows
them to experience the sheer bombast of rebellion coming from hip-‐hop music. However, it is
questionable how political these youths are when they listen to hip-‐hop. But he does note the fact that
hip hop also feeds into a new breeding ground for racial stereotypes where the popular image of a
rapper is seen as truly authentic African American culture. That is not the case with popular hip-‐hop so
55 Ibid. p. 8. 56 Kitwana, Bakari. Why White Kids Love Hip-‐Hop: Wankstas, Wiggers, Wannabes, and the Reality of Race in America. Basic Civitas Books, 2006.
32
the white population might be hurting as much as enjoying hip hop due to their future roles as leaders
of the nation. Although it might be a complicated read, and being a fan as he was a writer for the Source
magazine, he makes a few pertinent points. Kitwana focuses on popular mainstream hip hop culture.
Other historians have delved into the racial spaces and politics of hip hop through the underground
scene, which remains a bastion for its largely white audience.
Anthony Kwame Harrison provides a deeper look into the racial aspect within hip-‐hop culture
with his experiences on the West Coast of the United States.57 In his book he writes on the burgeoning
underground Hip Hop scene in San Francisco’s Bay area. He notes that white rappers were much more
prevalent in the scene feeling a sense of superiority due to their belief that they were the final frontier
of the authentic hip hop sound. However, when this clashes when they participate with African
Americans in rap battles and even in humorous exchanges with regards to imitating the most popular
hip hop acts, which are considered mainstream and are mostly African American, tensions arise. When
African Americans see whites imitating a perceived African American style through stereotyping they
respond with the same tactic or with visible anger. Harrison provides the reader with the complexity of
white participation in hip hop, perceived racial stereotypes, and the quest for pure hip hop authenticity,
which is a paradox unto itself.
Authors have discussed the issue of gender when writing on African American music. The role of
black women is diminished due to the popular image of African American men as the predominant force
behind the music. Many books have been written in recent decades showing how many African
American women were involved in the music and its evolution. African American women have been
unearthed by newer histories and their roles are brought to the forefront of musical innovation. Many
books have been written to dispute this claim by showing how many women were involved in the music.
57 Harrison, Anthony Kwame. Hip Hop Underground: The Integrity and Ethics of Racial Identification. Temple University Press, 2009.
33
Jerma Jackson makes this point with the use of the many popular female gospel performers such as
Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the more obscure Arizona Dranes. Daphne Harrison exposed the many
women who participated in singing the blues in the 1920’s.58 In her book she examines the lyrics of
these women’s songs and how they transformed the ideas and concepts of African American female
behavior. She follows specific women such as Sippie Wallace and Alberta Hunter in order to show that
they introduced a new type of woman. These women were self-‐confident, sexually aggressive, sensitive,
bereft, independent and yet somewhat vulnerable in their world. Their performances and how they
performed by using a tough demeanor while sounding smooth, inflection, and emphasis and
improvisation had quite an impact on future performers.
Due to it being the newest of the genres hip-‐hop has and remains to be written about in many
different ways. Many books have been written about the genre in the past two decades with various
topics and issues discussed by many types of writers. Tricia Rose’s contributions are astounding and
along with her book Black Noise, discussed earlier, she wrote another seminal work on the troubles and
pitfalls of hip hop culture and the music being made. Her second book attempts to tackle the issues of
hip-‐hop and move people from debates into action. She writes that “we must fight for a progressive,
social justice-‐inspired, culturally nuanced take on hip hop.”59 Unlike her last book, this is a call to arms
against the conservative and liberal critiques, or lack thereof, of hip hop culture in the new millennium.
The book focuses more on the negativity, that she sees being nothing but counterproductive and
destructive, of both the criticism and support surrounding hip hop music as it is displayed in the past
decade. She describes how hip-‐hop’s supporters use language condoning sexism, misogyny, and
homophobia while hip hop’s detractors often times use coded racist language. While presenting these
contradictions she also lambasts the cultural reinforcement, through hip hop music, of gender and racial
58 Harrison, Daphne. Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920’s. Rutgers University Press, 1988. 59 Rose, Tricia. The Hip Hop Wars. p.29.
34
inequality. Eschewing another historical analysis, she argues that as a nation we must shake these
projections of racial stereotypes while criticizing the crass capitalist machine that keeps nurturing these
African American artists who have to act a certain way and project a specific image heaped onto them
by white corporate bosses for profit.
There have been other types of books focusing on the lyrics and what they mean within the
process of creation and articulation. One example is a book of essays analyzing a rap song through
specific musical interpretations such as the general style, the flow, the beats, and the production
values.60 In the introduction the author points out that these songs should be analyzed through the
method of its creation while using musicological analysis and set specific categories. The author writes,
“Interpretation, the way in which one hears and thinks about music, is heavily based on knowledge
regarding formal musical characteristics, such as general style, flow, beats, and production techniques.
Ideas and assumptions about these musical properties are part of larger analytical categories that are
identifiable by descriptive terms and phrases as well as comparisons with other artists and negative
definitions.”61 The book covers quite a diverse terrain including an analysis of Afro-‐Asian hip hop, live
performances in New York City and the Manhattan scene, a look at trans-‐cultural interchange between
Indian music and Hip Hop, and a very informative chapter on lyrical analysis. The methods of the book
attempt to write about music in a purely musical way by eschewing the notions that what makes hip hop
music is not legitimate music making, at least in the academic sense. The analysis is very helpful to
historians who look not only at the written words and lyrical content, but also the musical background
including delivery, technique, and style when rapping on a recorded song.
60 Eds. Hisama, Ellie M. and Evan Rapport. Critical Minded: New Approaches to Hip-‐Hop Studies. Institute for Studies in American History, 2005. 61 Ibid. p.87.
35
Adam Bradley made another method of analysis by using various lyrical schemes by both
conventional and not so conventional rappers of the past few decades.62 By attempting to analyze the
poetics of these artists, he attempts to legitimize them in another artistic way. He compares their
deliveries to past poets and their structures, which at times are very similar to certain hip hop artists.
This gives a deeper breadth into the art form of creating rhymes as opposed to the popular and
somewhat ambivalent belief that it is very easy to put a few words together and make a competitive and
skillful rhyme scheme. Interestingly enough, he and a co-‐author, including many other contributors,
compiled a somewhat comprehensive anthology of specific hip-‐hop lyrics.63 The book is definitive yet it
somewhat misses the true mark of hip-‐hop. Like the improvisation of jazz artists, hip hop artists have
relished in this process, and with the use of slang which is or was used at the time of the writing process,
and are hard to pin down in such a comprehensive anthology. However, to the common reader
including musicologists and historians who are unfamiliar with the actual lyrics can become more
acquainted with the music and its many messages.
Hip Hop, in the past decade, has also seen the many fans, avid followers, and insiders who
attempt to write a serious history (whether social, economic or cultural) on the culture itself. One of the
best examples is Jeff Chang’s book chronicling the cultural history of hip-‐hop.64 Using a prolific amount
of sources, he provides a socio-‐economic history of Hip Hop and its cultural impact across the country.
While presenting the street scenes in New York City where the music originated he also presents how
urban flight, race riots, gang activity focusing mostly on New York City and Southern California, and
political campaigns affected both the music and the culture, as well as visa versa. Although Chang is not
a trained academic the book is a great attempt at a linear history of hip hop, which scholars should cite
in the future due to his meticulous research and writing skills.
62 Bradley, Adam. Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop. Basic Civitas Books, 2009. 63 Bradley, Adam and Andrew DuBois. The Anthology of Rap. Yale University Press, 2011. 64 Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-‐Hop Generation. Picador, 2005.
36
Another more recent example is Dan Charnas and his book about the business end of the hip-‐
hop industry. This well researched book by an insider shows the business acumen of the various
personalities who worked inside the industry. Charnas makes a good point in articulating that the
business is not only about the music, but also about the culture including fashion, printed materials,
beverages, etc. Many of the personalities in this book are mentioned in Chang’s book, but a few are not
due to their acting behind the scenes of a specific artist or group. There have also been other types of
books about hip hop including a full oral history of the first decade of Hip Hop compiled by Jim Fricke
and Charlie Ahearn (Ahearn directed the first hip hop film, Wild Style).65 Also the editors and writers
from the long out of print fringe hip hop humor magazine Ego Trip have compiled a comprehensive and
at times very resourceful book of rap lists for the avid fan.66
The methods of historical analysis are constantly changing when it comes to writing on any
genre of African American music. It appears that the field is both growing when it comes to the amount
of historians taking note yet the content has also become far more focused. In an article written by an
emerging scholar by the name of Gail Hilson Woldu she attempts to explain this trend when it comes to
writing on Hip Hop music.67 In her article she explains that many different people write on hip-‐hop from
scholars, to journalists, to the passionate fans and everyone in between. The article is very informative
because it challenges future scholars on their methods of analysis and writing. Woldu writes that many
things need to develop such as more astute writing by cultural critics, the addition of courses on Hip Hop
beyond the limitations of music or ethnomusicology angles, and that historians need to focus more on
specific Hip Hop groups and individuals who continue to shape the landscape of Hip Hop culture. As one
of these scholars I am taking the challenge by writing on hip-‐hop and its ever-‐broadening definitions.
65 Eds. Fricke, Jim and Charlie Ahearn. Yes, Yes, Ya’ll: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-‐Hop’s First Decade. De Capo Press, 2002. 66 Eds. Jenkins, Sacha, Elliot Wilson, Chairman Mao, Gabriel Alvarez, and Brent Rollins. Ego Trip’s Book of Rap Lists. St. Martin’s Griffin, 1999. 67 Woldu, Gail Hilson. “The Kaleidoscope of Writing on Hip Hop Culture.”
37
BIBLIOGRAPHY: BOOKS
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9. Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-‐Hop Generation. Picador, 2005.
10. Charters, Samuel. The Blues Makers. De Capo Press, 1991.
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12. Erenberg, Lewis A. Swinging the Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture.
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13. Eds. Forman, Murray and Mark Anthony Neal. That’s the Joint! The Hip-‐Hop Studies Reader.
Routledge, 2004.
38
14. Eds. Fricke, Jim and Charlie Ahearn. Yes, Yes, Ya’ll: The Experience Music Project Oral History of
Hip-‐Hop’s First Decade. De Capo Press, 2002.
15. Gillett, Charlie. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll. De Capo Press, 1970.
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Institute for Studies in American History, 2005.
20. Jackson, Jerma. Singing in My Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age. University of North
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21. Jay-‐Z. Decoded. Spiegel & Grau, 2010.
22. Eds. Jenkins, Sacha, Elliot Wilson, Chairman Mao, Gabriel Alvarez, and Brent Rollins. Ego Trip’s
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27. Lomax, Alan. The Land Where the Blues Began. Delta Press, 1995.
28. Mahon, Maureen. Right To Rock: The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race. Duke
University Press, 2004.
39
29. Melnick, Jeffrey. A Right to Sing the Blues: African Americans, Jews and American Popular Song.
Harvard University Press, 2001.
30. Miller, Karl Hagstrom. Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow.
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31. Ogren, Kathy. The Jazz Revolution: Twenties America and the Meaning of Jazz. Oxford University
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32. Oliver, Paul. The Story of the Blues. Northeastern University Press, 1969.
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34. Palmer, Robert. Deep Blues. Penguin Books, 1981.
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36. Peretti, Burton W. The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race, and Culture in Urban America. University of
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37. Ed. Perkins, William Eric. Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture.
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39. Porter, Eric. What is This Thing Called Jazz? African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and
Activists. University of California Press, 2002.
40. Porter, Horace A. Jazz Country: Ralph Ellison in America. University of Iowa Press, 2001.
41. Radano, Ronald. Lying Up a Nation: Race and Black Music. University of Chicago Press, 2003.
42. Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Wesleyan
University Press, 1994.
40
43. -‐-‐ . The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop -‐ and Why It Matters.
Basic Books, 2008.
44. Saul, Scott. Freedom Is, Freedom Ain’t: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties. Harvard University
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About Feeling Low. John Wiley & Sons Publications, 2012.
46. Stratton, Jon. Jews, Race and Popular Music. Ashgate Books, 2009.
47. Toop, David. Rap Attack #3: African Rap to Global Hip Hop. Serpent’s Tail, 2000.
48. Ward, Andrew. Dark Midnight When I Rise: The Story of the Jubilee Singers, Who Introduced the
World to the Music of Black America. HarperCollins, 2001.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: ARTICLES
1. Gilroy, Paul. “Sounds Authentic: Black Music, Ethnicity, and the Challenge of a Changing Same.”
Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 11, No. 2, 1991.
2. Woldu, Gail Hilson. “The Kaleidoscope of Writing on Hip Hop Culture.” Notes, Vol. 67, No.1,
2010.