Per the Carnegie Hall Timeline of African American Music and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Black American music is one of the most globally influential cultural traditions. A playlist is not engagement. The record is literacy.
Genres and origins
Spirituals — enslaved African Christians, eighteenth–nineteenth century; later the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Work songs and field hollers — enslaved labor. Blues — Mississippi Delta, 1890s–early 1900s; Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf. Ragtime — 1890s–1910s; Scott Joplin. Jazz — New Orleans, 1910s; Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane. Gospel — 1920s, urban Black church; Thomas Dorsey, Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland, Aretha Franklin, Kirk Franklin. Rhythm and blues — 1940s; Ruth Brown, Big Mama Thornton, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke. Doo-wop — 1950s; The Drifters, The Coasters, The Platters. Soul — 1960s; Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Al Green. Motown — 1960s Detroit; The Supremes, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5. Funk — late 1960s; James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, Parliament-Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire. Disco — 1970s; Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Chic. Hip-hop / rap — South Bronx, 1973–; DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Run-D.M.C., Public Enemy, N.W.A., Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Nas, Outkast, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Cardi B, Beyoncé. Go-go — 1970s Washington, D.C.; Chuck Brown. House — late 1970s Chicago; Frankie Knuckles. Techno — 1980s Detroit; Juan Atkins, Derrick May. New jack swing — late 1980s; Teddy Riley, Bobby Brown. Neo-soul — 1990s–2000s; D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, Maxwell, Jill Scott. Trap — 2000s Atlanta; Gucci Mane, Future, Young Thug, Migos, 21 Savage. Afrobeats and amapiano — 2010s–, influences crossing back from African and South African scenes.
Memory and politics
From “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (the Black national anthem, James Weldon Johnson, 1900) through Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” (1964), Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On (1971), Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” (1989), to Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) and Beyoncé’s Lemonade (2016), Black music has been a primary art form for narrating Black experience.
Minnesota
Prince Rogers Nelson (1958–2016) — Minneapolis-born, architect of the Minneapolis Sound, one of the greatest musicians in American history. The Time, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Janet Jackson (with the Minnesota production team), Morris Day, Sheila E. — Minneapolis was a major Black music center in the 1980s.
