Menu
Idea

African American music

Back out to African American culture
127
View on Map
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 61–90 of 127 results. Go to first page

What's Going On? 50 Years Ago, The Answer Was Bigger Than Marvin Gaye

In 1971, a wave of Black artists released explosive new work that put its politics front and center.
by Mark Anthony Neal via NPR on May 21, 2021
Worshipers at a Pentecostal church, Chicago, 1941

A Praise House of Many Mansions

In a book and documentary series, Henry Louis Gates Jr. offers a wide-ranging tour of Black religion in America.
by Erica Armstrong Dunbar via New York Review of Books on April 29, 2021
A graffiti mural in Los Angeles

The Emergence Of Gangsta Rap

A review of "To Live and Defy in LA: How Gangsta Rap Changed America."
by Katherine Rye Jewell via The Metropole on March 30, 2021
Morgan Wallen
partner

The Crossroads Facing Country Music After Morgan Wallen’s Use of a Racist Slur

Will the industry remain a bastion of conservatism, or take advantage of the opportunity to broaden its base?
by Amanda Marie Martinez via Made By History on February 17, 2021
Hendrix performing at Woodstock

Rewinding Jimi Hendrix’s National Anthem

His blazing rendition at Woodstock still echoes throughout the years, reminding us of what is worth fighting for in the American experiment.
by Paul Grimstad via The New Yorker on January 26, 2021
Cover of "The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience Since the 1960s"

In Search of Soul

A musicological conversation about the history and social value of Black music.
by Sasha Frere-Jones, Emily J. Lordi via Bookforum on November 24, 2020
Abstract picture of Robert Johnson

The Devil Had Nothing to Do With It

“Robert Johnson was one of the most inventive geniuses of all time,” wrote Bob Dylan. “We still haven’t caught up with him.”
by Greil Marcus via New York Review of Books on November 13, 2020

Songs in the Key of Life

A new book presents an expansive vision of soul music.
by Danielle Amir Jackson via Bookforum on September 3, 2020

Why the Black National Anthem Is Lifting Every Voice to Sing

Scholars agree the song, endowed with its deep history of Black pride, speaks to the universal human condition.
by Janelle Harris Dixon via Smithsonian on August 10, 2020

Somebody Died, Babe: A Musical Cover-Up of Racism, Violence, and Greed

Beneath the popular folk song, “Swannanoa Tunnel” and the railroad tracks that run through Western North Carolina is a story of blood, greed, and obfuscation.
by Kevin Kehrberg, Jeffrey A. Keith via The Bitter Southerner on August 4, 2020
Photograph of Sun Ra by Ming Smith

Sun Ra: ‘I’m Everything and Nothing’

Sun Ra, a seminal artist of afrofuturism, embraced a unique vision of blackness.
by Namwali Serpell via New York Review of Books on July 12, 2020
Rapper YG, one of a crowd of people at a protest over the death of George Floyd.

Hip-hop is The Soundtrack to Black Lives Matter Protests

Songs from Public Enemy and Ludacris have been heard at marches, continuing a tradition that dates back to the blues.
by Tyina Steptoe via The Conversation on June 25, 2020

Rewriting Country Music's Racist History

Artists like Yola and Rhiannon Giddens are blowing up what Giddens calls a “manufactured image of country music being white and being poor.”
by Elamin Abdelmahmoud via Rolling Stone on June 5, 2020
Cartoon by Joey Perr; a man in a top hat and holding a monacle studies a sign broadcasting Ella Fitzgerald as music notes fill the air.

What’s Going On

The vexed history of "Night Life" in the New Yorker.
by Phillip Golub via The Drift on May 22, 2020
partner

Coronavirus Has a Playlist. Songs About Disease Go Way Back.

Coronavirus songwriting has gone as global as the pandemic itself, creating a new genre called pandemic pop. It’s a tradition with a long history.
by Anthony DeCurtis via Retro Report on April 17, 2020
Sasha Geffen next to their book

Pop Music Has Always Been Queer

Sasha Geffen’s debut book reveals that the history of pop music is a history of gender rebellion.
by Tal Milovina via The Nation on April 8, 2020
The sun shining through the crown of a lone tree in an agricultural field.

What The Mississippi Delta Teaches Me About Home—And Hope

Finding struggle and resilience on a road trip through the birthplace of the blues.
by Wright Thompson via Fellow Travelers on January 6, 2020

Why MLK Believed Jazz Was the Perfect Soundtrack for Civil Rights

Jazz, King declared, was the ability to take the “hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.”
by Ashawnta Jackson via JSTOR Daily on October 16, 2019

The Breaks of History

We might say that these books are recording a life with music, and that they are worth listening to.
by Robert Cashin Ryan via Public Books on July 29, 2019
Steve Dahl beside the dumpster full of records collected for Disco Demolition Night

Disco Demolition: The Night They Tried to Crush Black Music

When a DJ called on listeners to destroy disco records in a Chicago stadium, things turned nasty.
by Alexis Petridis via The Guardian on July 19, 2019

“Swinging While I’m Singing”: Spike Lee, Public Enemy, and the Message in the Music

Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," featured in Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing," embodied many sentiments of a black generation.
by Mark Anthony Neal via Black Perspectives on June 24, 2019

Odetta Holmes’ Album One Grain of Sand

Odetta’s artistry was a weapon in the Civil Rights struggle, and was crucial to the era’s politics.
by Matthew Frye Jacobson via Longreads on May 22, 2019

Rhiannon Giddens and What Folk Music Means

The roots musician is inspired by the evolving legacy of the black string band.
by John Jeremiah Sullivan via The New Yorker on May 13, 2019

Her Ancestors Fled to Mexico to Escape Slavery 170 Years Ago. She Still Sings in English.

The oldest living member of the Mascogos still sings songs in a language she doesn't understand.
by Kevin Sieff via Washington Post on April 12, 2019

The Forgotten Story of Pure Hell, America’s First Black Punk Band

The four-piece lived with the New York Dolls and played with Sid Vicious, but they’ve been largely written out of cultural history.
by Cassidy George via Dazed on August 8, 2018
Elvis Presley performing to a crowd of fans reaching toward him

How Christianity Created Rock ’n’ Roll

Rock music owes much of its claim to coolness to the Christian faith.
by David Hajdu via Public Books on June 21, 2018

'They Put Us in a Little Box': How Racial Tensions Shape Modern Soul Music

While white Americana singers have infused more soul into their sound, black artists still feel restricted by limited expectations.
by Jon Bernstein via The Guardian on June 13, 2018

Acquitting Elvis of Cultural Appropriation

His groundbreaking rock-n-roll was neither 'thievery' nor 'derivative blackness.'
by David Masciotra via The American Conservative on April 18, 2018

King's Death Gave Birth to Hip-Hop

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. led directly to hip-hop, an era that is often contrasted with his legacy.
by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on April 8, 2018

Bring the Noize

A search for the source of Southern hip-hop’s magic will always lead you to three men from Atlanta, known to the world as Organized Noize.
by Joycelyn Wilson via The Bitter Southerner on June 27, 2017
View More
30 of
127

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History