Redneck Playlist Hilight [Part 4]

Today we are gonna talk about black influences on popular music. So far in the redneck playlist hilight we've come from Pop Country to Bluegrass to Indie Folk. We talked alittle bit about how sounds from the folk and rural cultures is appropriated for hipster alternative audiophiles in the indie scene last time. But what about going deeper? What is the history of country music from the very beginning? You might even say that's where American music started all to gether!

Slavery: useful? Perhaps. Destructive and cancerous to the very societies it served and those involved in it as slaves plus the slave traders? No doubt about it. African slaves, taken from their world and put into another, didn't jsut forget their culture. Many songs we know today, famously like "Swing low, sweet chariot", were orignlally working songs from the fields of the south. There was (and there still is too) apretty powerful, distinctive musical force in Africa's culture. When the slaves outnumber the slavers that's gonna have an influence on white culture too.

However though, it isnt really until the start of the musical industry, in the 1920's and 30s that we really care for our purposes. New Orleans is where we need to look. What is Jazz? The word comes from the creole slang for "sex", for one thing, and its sensuous, free and emotinoal style sets it apart from classical music like the classic Americn composer eric copland. It comes mostly from a combination of true redneck bluegrass from the appalachians, combined with this imported influence. All this comes together in the wild giant city of new orleans.

The style started with African Americans and Creole musicians, but it was quickly taken up by white musicians and producers. Because of the time when this was happening, racism was a big thing. Black artists like Duke Ellington could be tolerated, and even appreciated, for their music, but they had to use the back door. To what extent is this music just taken to serve the dominant culture?

A lot of people like Elvis, Eminem, and more have been accused of stealing black music and making it "ok" for a white crowd, but a bunch of that, like we've seen from the last few music playlists, happens naturally in the musical world. Influences bounce off each other and combine together to create wild new forms of expreshion.

Take a listen to some classic jazz and think about where it comes from:



By Tiberius. Follow us on the bar to the right to hear more insights!