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Music Is History combines Questlove's deep musical expertise with his curiosity about history, examining America over the past fifty years. Focusing on the years 1971 to the present, Questlove finds the hidden connections in the American tapes- try, whether investigating how the blaxploitation era reshaped Black identity or considering the way disco took an assembly-line approach to Black genius. And these critical inquiries are complemented by his...
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Enslaved African Americans longed for freedom, and that longing took many forms including music. Drawing on biblical imagery, slave songs both expressed the sorrow of life in bondage and offered a rallying cry for the spirit. Like a Bird brings together text, music, and illustrations by Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator Michele Wood to convey the rich meaning behind thirteen of these powerful songs.
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African Americans-famous and anonymous alike-have helped shape popular musical genres ranging from jazz and blues to rock 'n' roll and rap. This book provides a vivid account of that process, beginning with the work songs and spirituals of slaves and continuing up to the present. African-American Musicians tells the stories of figures such as bluesman Robert Johnson, whose guitar playing was so extraordinary that people said he must have made a deal...
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Author Denise Sullivan explores the bond between music and social change and traces the evolution of protest music over the past five decades. The marriage of music and social change did not originate with the civil rights and black power movements of the 1950s and 1960s, but never before had the relationship between the two been so dynamic. Black music altered the road to liberation for minorities, sparking creativity and resulting in a genre-encompassing...
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"The song "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" is personified, describing the Black history and culture that inspired its creation. Written in 1968 by singer James Brown after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, the song became an anthem for the civil rights movement"--
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Traces the roots of black music in Africa and slavery and its evolution in the United States from the end of slavery to the present day. The music's creators, consumers, and distributors are all part of the story. Musical genres such as spirituals, ragtime, the blues, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues, rock, soul, and hip-hop-as well as black contributions to classical, country, and other American music forms-depict the continuities and innovations that...
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The influence of African Americans on music in the United States cannot be overstated. A large variety of musical genres owe their beginnings to black musicians. Jazz, rap, funk, R & B, and even techno have roots in African American culture. This volume chronicles the history of African American music, with spotlights on influential black musicians of the past and present. Historical and contemporary photographs, including primary sources, contribute...
11) Music
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Discusses the evolution of African-American music from its roots in the rhythms and instruments from Africa through the development of the blues, gospel, and soul to modern rock and rap.
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"Will Ashon tells, in 36 interlinked 'chambers', the story of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and how it changed the world. As unexpected and complex as the album itself, Chamber Music ranges from provocative essays to semi-comic skits, from deep scholarly analysis to satirical celebration, seeking to contextualize, reveal and honor this singular work of art. Chamber Music is an explosive and revelatory new way of writing about music and culture."--...
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"A provocative interpretation of why classical music in America "stayed white"-how it got to be that way and what can be done about it. In 1893 the composer Antonin Dvorák prophesied a "great and noble" school of American classical music based on the searing "negro melodies" he had excitedly discovered since arriving in the United States a year before. But while Black music would found popular genres known the world over, it never gained a foothold...
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"Mamie Smith's pathbreaking 1920 recording of 'Crazy Blues' set the pop music world on fire, inaugurating a new African American market for 'race records.' Not long after, such records also brought black blues performance to an expanding international audience. A century later, the mainstream blues world has transformed into a multicultural and transnational melting pot, taking the music far beyond the black southern world of its origins. But not...
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"The twin acts of singing and fighting for freedom have been inseparable in African American history. May We Forever Stand tells an essential part of that story. With lyrics penned by James Weldon Johnson and music composed by his brother Rosamond, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was embraced almost immediately as an anthem that captured the story and the aspirations of black Americans. Since the song's creation, it has been adopted by the NAACP and performed...
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This book "takes readers from 1979, widely regarded as the moment rap became recognized as part of the cultural and musical landscape, and comes right up to the present, with Shea Serrano ... discussing, debating, and deconstructing the most important rap song year by year. Serrano also examines the most important moments that surround the history and culture of rap music--from artists' backgrounds to issues of race, the rise of hip-hop, and the struggles...
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"Music has always been integral to the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, with songs such as Kendrick Lamar's "Alright," J. Cole's "Be Free," D'Angelo and the Vanguard's "The Charade," The Game's "Don't Shoot," Janelle Monae's "Hell You Talmbout," Usher's "Chains," and many others serving as unofficial anthems and soundtracks for members and allies of the movement. In this collection of critical studies, contributors draw from ethnographic...
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"Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author with a "lively, engaging, and often wise" (The New York Times Book Review) voice, offers a lyrical, introspective, and unforgettable account of her past and her search for the first family of Black country music. Country music had brought Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite...
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