African Music Black Culture

Improved Essays
Music and Black culture The history of black culture goes back approximately 120,000 years in Africa. During this period in time and throughout history, black people have seen times of hierarchy, sorrow, slavery, racism, prejudice, justice and freedom. In these heart breaking and joyous times, music has been a form of expression for the black community in more ways than one. The topic of black culture is something that has gained more and more attention over the past few years. We have seen black culture shown through positive and in most cases negative representations. Music is something that has developed and grown into the most influential thing that it is today. Black culture is expressed through the music that has been created tremendously, …show more content…
However, African music is all very similar in some ways and is connected very highly to African dance. African music helps create connections between the people of the community and is used a mode of communication. Talking drums, signal drums and songs are all forms of communicating in Africa. African music is focused much more on rhythm than on harmony or melody and includes mostly a polyphonic style. It is obvious that African music consists of drums, more specifically tama talking drums, Bougarabou drums, water drums and ngoma drums. However, it also consists of instruments like string instruments and flutes. African music has influenced American music greatly through blues and jazz music. Due to the influence of western culture, traditional African music and dance has lessened in …show more content…
It was created in New York City in one of the poorest districts, by Latino and African American teens. At the time breakdancing and graffiti were also upcoming forms of art. Dj’s would use turn tables to make beats and rhymes. The mid-80’s were known as the hip hop golden age where the hip hop industry began to peak in producing more and more talented people. Hip hop used to be mostly about the struggles that teens faced living in poor environments and growing up around gangs and violence. Now it has become the opposite, millionaires flaunting their money and women, rapping about drugs and alcohol. This music, while being catchy and nice to listen to doesn’t portray a good message for the highly influenced minds of teenagers. In our society today rappers like Drake and Kanye West are a good example of what hard work and success looks likes, but the lyrics in their music can sometimes be controversial and inappropriate, especially with the younger generations listening. (1. What’s her name? – Ca$tro Guapo ft.

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Hip Hop Rap Vs Rap

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Rap and hip hop, although both genres originate from the same city and time, are very different due to their style and theme. These two genres have strikingly similar origins. Hip hop and rap both originated in the Bronx’s. They also surfaced around the same time, with Rap forming in the early 1979…

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    History Of Hip Hop

    • 1167 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Hip Hop started out in the 1970’s as a form of “cultural movement” for African-Americans in New York City. “Hip Hop consists of a stylized…

    • 1167 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Jazz Opportunities

    • 2450 Words
    • 10 Pages

    It is said that African music is closely related to…

    • 2450 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    African-American Culture

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages

    My own culture (give it a name): African-American culture, Black-America culture A different culture: “The Aka or Bayaka, also BiAka, Babenzele are a nomadic Mbenga, pygmy people. They lived in southwestern Central African Republic and the Brazzaville region of the Republic of the Congo” Bullock, K., Crawford, S. L., & Tennstedt, S. L. (2003). Sleeping Black infants living in the U.S are more than likely to fall asleep with a caregiver present, to have their beds in the parents’ room, and will spend all or part of the night co-sleeping with their parents. There’s the daily routine of bathing, playtime and storytelling.…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Harlem Renaissance

    • 1089 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Jazz music, as well as similar styles, integrated themselves into white culture:”Black musicians began to merge with white musicians[...] As time progressed, black music became more acceptable in white culture. Most blacks were a big part of jazz, however, some were a little slow, as Laban Hill writes, “[...]wealthy blacks felt that jazz music was more acceptable[than it was previously]”. Music and dance are the gateways to the soul, and Hill expresses that in his writing. Music and dance is something that everyone can relate to, and Hill describes how: “[...] distinctly African American music and dancing had a greater on the majority white population than [...] literary or artistic creations”(Hill 56).Music is a way to the heart of humans, we are drawn to melodies and beats.…

    • 1089 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is sad to say that today racism still exists. It appears that many times when my mother and I go into stores the employees ignore us or even treat us impolitely. For example, when we walk into a store nothing is said to us, no greeting, nothing. However, when a Caucasian or white person walks through the door, they receive a friendly greeting along with great customer service. This occurs because some Caucasians still have hatred towards African-Americans.…

    • 594 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In this journal, Corbould describes the birth of Jazz in Harlem, New York. During the 1920s to 1930s, African Americans experimented with new mediums. The journal explains that African Americans were creating different kind of sounds within churches, neighborhoods, and other environments. The sounds and behaviors created by them eventually became a part of the African American Identity. In time, these behaviors were named…

    • 65 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After having read your essay I checked your proposal and your sources analyses in order to have an overall experience of what you would like to research and why. The purpose of your proposal is slightly different from the purpose of your first draft. In your proposal, you mentioned that you wanted to explore "how music and language coincide with one another [and] how music was and is used as a tool to communicate social issues and social changes. " You also wanted to “show how music has been used as a form of language in worship, was, education medical etc.”…

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    African American Culture

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages

    There truly is nothing like having the opportunity in immerging oneself within a culture to find out who they are as human beings and how they feel about themselves in society and how they feel about law enforcement. Through new personal experiences, interviews, books, and online research I have expanded my knowledge of customs, traditions, and practices unfamiliar to me. My partner and I decided to choose the African American Culture. Although the African American culture is not new; it is a huge identity group that is still struggling in society today amongst the community, as a minority.…

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    African-American Culture

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “We should also understand that slavery should be viewed as a starting point for understanding the African-American. (Akbar)" We must realize the legacy that slavery has left on our mental state and change our behavior accordingly. We must rebuild our culture from the ground up. Learning to celebrate ourselves and unite with one another to become stronger than we ever were, this is the only way to ensure the longevity of the black culture in America.…

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    African Influence On Jazz

    • 1376 Words
    • 6 Pages

    “I see trees of green, red roses, too, I see them bloom, for me and you, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world.” These are lyrics from “What a Wonderful World” created by a mastermind of jazz named Louis Armstrong. There are many famous jazz composers, including Jelly Roll Morton, Buddy Bolden, and Miles Davis. Most people consider jazz being created in New Orleans, but its roots began from African rhythms. Freed African-American slaves helped create jazz at the end of the 19th century.…

    • 1376 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hip Hop Subculture Essay

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Research Paper Over the past forty years, hip-hop has emerged as one of the biggest contributors to American culture. American youth today use hip-hop music to voice the social, political, economic, and cultural conditions in their lives. Hip-hop today also reflects its origin from working-class African-Americans in New York City, and continues to serve as the voice of these people. As the popularity of hip-hop has grown, its marketability has also risen.…

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The History Of Jazz

    • 1314 Words
    • 5 Pages

    A widely accepted truth about Jazz is that it has roots in African culture. With the arrival of African slaves in America in the early 17th century, brought an although abused, mistreated and violated society of people to America it was that nonetheless a society of people. With a society comes culture, and the African culture is one with rich musical characteristics. The African people had a large variety of kinds of music and songs, those songs ranged from topics such as ritual songs, work songs, songs of mourning, songs of victory etc. African music is well known for being a vocal tradition, however it does feature a range of string instruments, some simple reed instruments like the tusk of an elephant, but the predominant characteristic of instruments in African music is the drums.…

    • 1314 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Essay On Hip Hop Culture

    • 1059 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Hip Hop became really popular in the mid to late nineteen hundreds and still is very popular to this day. Hip Hop has developed an art that reflects culture as well as express social, political and economic situations in many peoples lives, especially the youth. Music started off with drumming. Through drumming, communities were able to communicate, and the use of drums was also utilized in ceremonies and rituals in African American lives. Drumming was the base of African music in the Diaspora.…

    • 1059 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Essay On African Music

    • 1424 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Without African music we would not have some of the most popular genres of music that we have today. African music influence helped create genres like jazz, gospel, blues, soul and even hip hop and reggae. The traditional song and dance created by native Africans spread all over the world as its fusion with other type of song helped create the music we all know and love today. The spread of the African music can be traced to the slave trade that shipped Africans all over the world. The one thing many Africans were able to take with them was their musical traditions and songs.…

    • 1424 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics