African American Influence On Music

Improved Essays
One way history has influenced music is the sound. One example is when African Americans worked on plantations. During this time, many of them sang work songs to make the work more bearable. However, after the Civil War, the lyrics of work songs changed and started to revolve around stories of drinking, jail, labor, poverty, and lost love.

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Question 3: African Art The African art has several similarities with European art. For instance, due to the influence of Islam and Christianity, most of their art have religious or political purposes. However, wood is the material of their choice.…

    • 372 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1. Afrika Bambaataa is an American DJ who has with his eclectic music spread Hip Hop culture around the world. Bambaataa has done this with the help of founding a community called Mighty Zulu Nation in 1973. The appreciation for this kind of music has made him become involved in forming and being tutelage to many younger DJs were Bambaataa has “Founded crews like Soul Sonic Force and Cosmic Force” (Bradley 16). Where he has implemented his “eclectic taste and collectors mentality” (Bradley 16) to innovate what was Hip Hop music into a futuristic one.…

    • 119 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It gave the people motivation to want to reach where the artist were to join them on stage. It inspired many future artists like Taylor swift, ted nugent, and fleetwood mac. Even today you turn on the radio you can still hear their music play. People will always remember their music and it will be taught to more and more generations. As long as the music is there, their stories will always be told and how music brought blacks and whites together as one.…

    • 1994 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The History Of Jazz

    • 1314 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In the early 17th century boat upon boat would bring Africans to America to be sold as slaves and placed on plantations and other unfavorable positions. Although it was a turning point in African culture in brought upon the rise of the African American who although had changed significantly from his African roots still managed to keep some of their original identity. This retention of African identity also played a pivotal role in African American music, although it had gone through many changes whether they were naturally occurring or forced up on it, the African roots could still be pulled to the surface with rather ease. At first all was stripped from the slaves who arrived, in some cases even their music however over time and in different areas things like work songs would become more and more common because in the slave owners eyes these work songs promoted good work ethic and efficiency. Already we see a connection back to the African culture, the work song.…

    • 1314 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The development of the Civil Rights movement and opposing factions had lasting after effects on jazz music and, consequently, its performers. The Civil Rights movement sparked an influx of songs that used a mournful sound to express their message. Billie Holiday's strange fruit was one of many…

    • 1773 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American music would not be where it is today if it was not the contribution from the African Slaves who were being taken to the States and the Europeans who migrated from Europe. The American music is the product of mixture of different cultures and backgrounds. However, a lot of people do not know that African American influenced country, which is considered white music. For instance, Bailey was one of the first few black musicians who called themselves black hillbillies. Pecknold believes in his book, Hidden in the Mix: The African American Presence in Country Music, that “some have suggested that Bailey’s participation in the Grand Ole Opry demonstrated during hillbilly phase of the country music’s development black music and white music in the south were not separate”( Pecknold 147).…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Music has evolved drastically over these period of time and has changed the world for the…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    These three athletes had a huge impact on black sports and their culture. Sports seemed to be the only way to glory for African American and get peoples respect and acceptance. Jack Johnson probably had to work the hardest because back then, white people did not accept African Americans. On the ring, Johnson was a hunter and showed no mercy on the ring. The influence that he had on black people is that they had to be patient and wait for him to become first African American boxer.…

    • 373 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Billy Joel's Poem

    • 1429 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In today’s world it is common for most people to learn about history in a classroom, through a textbook and teacher. It seems silly or irrelevant to learn of the past in any other way than what we were prior taught in grade school and high school; However, there are other available sources to learn about history. One way that may not seem very familiar is through songs. Over the years many artists have produced songs referencing and telling the story of many historical events. From natural disasters to school shootings, there is probably a song that covers it.…

    • 1429 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    With so much production and consumption of a plethora of different forms of media, too many people never need to need for it to be any different than how it is, never have to wish it would change. Too many people, unknowingly, take for granted something another group of people would weep with joy at finding. This is what being represented in the media can feel like. African Americans experience anywhere from negative representation to erasure from television, film, literature, and even the educational curriculum. This lack of active or positive representation stems from a long, complex history of slavery and racism.…

    • 1222 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    the African-American slaves, they create their own musical styles, and it “evolved into gospel, blues, and what is now known as bluegrass and country music.” Most slaves they were not allowed to their own equipment, so they built particular musical band. And also “emphasis on rhythm” and “complex polyrhythms” were found in African music.…

    • 54 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Beginning in the seventeenth century, the first African slaves were brought to the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia to aid in the production of profitable crops is where a soon to be flourishing slave trade witnesses Africans being snatched and carried to America in bondage, separating them from their families, leaving them with no sense of familiarity. Although, unfortunate, out of this state of anguish and distress came the development of a new culture. Vast generations of Africans turned African-Americans over time advanced as a rich culture infused with music. African Americans were viewed as inferior and unequal for centuries as White Americans went through great bounds to keep blacks separated from their world. Despite the…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the 1920’s there was a large movement of African-Americans from the south to the North. This was called the Great Migration this relocation was due to the discrimination and disfranchisement of Blacks in the south. 6 million blacks poured into Northern, Midwestern, West coast cities ,largely New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, in search for a better life and job opportunities. Due to restrictions on where blacks could live, they were limited to ghettos in the inner city.2 In New York, many moved to the upper Manhattan area, particularly Harlem; in fact, by 1923, there were an estimated 150, 000 African-Americans living in Harlem.3 This migration of people helped fuse cultures and greatly contributed to what many know as the Harlem Renaissance,…

    • 867 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    West African musical influences can be found throughout the rest of Africa and across the globe. These influences can be found throughout various genres of music, including jazz, blues, and electronic music. A modern example I discovered that demonstrates West African musical styles was M83’s Midnight City, an electronic song. Firstly, and prominently featured throughout the song is the synth pattern, or ostinato that is repeated through a large majority of the song. It is a simple four note synth rhythm, but it is remains present while the chords change, and the ostinato does not interfere with the changing chords, but allows and encourages the chord changes.…

    • 287 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    If it wasn’t for the music back then, the Americans today wouldn’t have a unique approach to music and it would be meaningless. Music today doesn’t differ much from the past, if anything it just evolved. This is a reason why Americans take the art of music so dearly. Music would be one of the few luxuries the colonists had in their time and would change their everyday…

    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays