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Music in slavery - Worksongs
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Spirituals
Spirituals were a gospel style of music started by African Americans, after conversion to christianity. After the service at church, there would be singing and dancing. The main difference between spirituals and gospel music, is that spirituals are folk songs and often the credit of writing goes to a community, instead of one author. These songs often relate to bondage in the bible. -
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Blues Music
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. -
Civil War - Warband Music
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Ragtime
Ragtime is a genre of music most known for it's sycopated rhythm. It was originally created as dance music in the south, and set the stage for jazz and other genres to break through. African Americans, such as Ernest Logan and Scott Joplin. Joplin has even been reffered to as "The King of Ragtime." -
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Jazz Music
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals. -
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Boogie Woogie
Boogie woogie, like ragtime is a form of dance-music. While the actual origins are hard to pin down, the title "boogie woogie" is thought to possibly be derived from African words.. One example of this is the Bantu term Mbuki Mvuki. Mbuki means "to take off in flight" and Mvuki means "to dance wildly. -
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R'n'B - Rhythm and Blues
Rhythm and Blues is another type of music that influenced jazz greatly. It was a genre that was dominated, and possibly even exclusively created by African Americans. Most of the songs, regardless of the tempo, were sung in a lamenting, soulfull style, that expressed the hardships of the times for black americans. We can still see the influence today in many other music styles, including contemporary R&B. -
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Rock and roll is formed
While rock and roll has had participants of many different races, African Americans played a very large part, due to their contribution into Rhythm and Blues and Jazz, which were two of the music gentres which contributed to Rock and Roll. Among these African American musicians were Louis Jordan, who was especially influential in the swing genre, and Wynonie Harris, who influenced artist such as Elvis. -
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Funk Music
Funk music is a blend of soul, jazz and R&B. It includes horns, rhythmic beats and electric guitar or keyboard. It is a dance-style music and it's influences are recognized in hip hop music today. -
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Hip Hop Music
Influenced by funk and disco, Hip Hop currently still exists as the musical style that is dominated by black/African American musicians. While much of the music is created specifically with dance beats, much of it also speaks of hardships faced by African Americans in current society.