{"id":9427,"date":"2017-06-25T21:15:58","date_gmt":"2017-06-25T21:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=9427"},"modified":"2017-07-04T09:57:33","modified_gmt":"2017-07-04T09:57:33","slug":"african-american-music-appreciation-month-5-essential-reads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/african-american-music-appreciation-month-5-essential-reads\/","title":{"rendered":"African-American Music Appreciation Month: 5 essential reads"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Lehr<\/a>, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

To commemorate African-American Music Appreciation Month this June, California Senator Kamala Harris released a Spotify playlist<\/a> with songs spanning genres and generations, from TLC\u2019s \u201cWaterfalls<\/a>\u201d to Marvin Gaye\u2019s \u201cWhat\u2019s Going On<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a nod to the integral role African-American musicians play in the country\u2019s rich musical legacy, we\u2019ve decided to highlight our own \u201cplaylist\u201d of articles, pieces that feature icons like Michael Jackson and Tupac Shakur, along with forgotten \u2013 but no less important \u2013 voices, from Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield to the Rev. T.T. Rose.<\/p>\n

The first black pop star is born<\/h2>\n

Before Aretha Franklin, before Ella Fitzgerald, there was Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield. A self-taught opera singer born in 1820, Greenfield had to overcome the belief that blacks couldn\u2019t actually sing.<\/p>\n

Penn State music instructor Adam Gustafson tells the story of Greenfield\u2019s rise<\/a>, which made audiences reconcile their racism with their ears:<\/p>\n

\u201cGreenfield was met with laughter when she took to the stage. Several critics blamed the uncouth crowd in attendance; others wrote it off as lighthearted amusement. Despite the inauspicious beginning, critics agreed that her range and power were astonishing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Segregating sound<\/h2>\n

By the early 20th century, Americans were clamoring for the albums of black artists. The music industry was eager to oblige, but cordoned them off into a distinct genre: \u201crace music.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most prominent early race labels was Paramount Records. Between 1917 and 1932, Paramount recorded a breathtaking range of seminal African-American artists. Unfortunately, as Penn State\u2019s Jerry Zoltan explains, black artists like the Rev. T.T. Rose and the Pullman Porters Quartet were ruthlessly exploited<\/a> \u2013 and eventually forgotten.<\/p>\n

\u201cBottom line: if record companies could get away with it, there was no bottom line. No negotiated contract to sign. No publishing. No royalties. Anonymity was also implicit in the deal, so many black artists were forgotten, their only legacy the era\u2019s brittle shellac disks that were able to withstand the wear of time.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Huddie \u2018Lead Belly\u2019 Ledbetter with his accordion.<\/span>
\nWikimedia Commons<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

University of Maryland, Baltimore County\u2019s Clifford Murphy describes how these same industry forces tried to pigeonhole an ex-con named Huddie \u201cLead Belly\u201d Ledbetter as a black blues artist.<\/p>\n

But Lead Belly loved country stars like Gene Autry, and while he sang blues and spirituals, he also created songs influenced by the string band traditions of the white working class. Promoters, however, were interested in only a certain type of song<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThough he had an immense repertoire, he was urged to record and perform songs like \u2018Pick A Bale of Cotton,\u2019 while songs considered \u2018white,\u2019 like \u2018Silver Haired Daddy of Mine,\u2019 were either downplayed or cast aside\u2026 Lead Belly was constrained by a commercial and cultural industry that wanted to present a certain archetype of African-American music.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Michael Jackson breaks the mold<\/h2>\n

Only later would black artists be able to move freely across musical genres. Perhaps no artist stitched together a more diverse range of styles and influences than Michael Jackson, the King of Pop.<\/p>\n

But Jackson was simultaneously derided as \u201cWacko Jacko,\u201d a hopelessly deluded freak. McMaster University\u2019s Susan Fast sees it differently. To Fast, the way Jackson lived his life was an extension of the risks he took in his music<\/a>. Both were united by a central tenet: to collapse boundaries considered irrevocable.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael Jackson \u2013 gender ambiguous; adored and reviled; human, werewolf, panther; black, white, brown; child, adolescent, adult \u2013 shattered the assumptions of a society that craves neat categories and compartmentalization. Order and normality are illusions, he said through his life and art.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The triumph and tragedy of Tupac<\/h2>\n

In the 1980s, hip-hop \u2013 then a budding musical genre \u2013 found itself gravitating toward black nationalist messages. It was during this time that Tupac Shakur, the son of a Black Panther, came of age.<\/p>\n

While R&B, soul and jazz musicians were largely silent about the challenges poor black communities faced, Tupac, in his music, directly confronted the hostile forces that threatened him and his peers: mass incarceration, poverty, illegal drugs and police brutality. But in Tupac\u2019s meteoric rise and swift fall, UConn\u2019s Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar sees the tragedies of an entire generation of black youth<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"The\u201cTupac\u2019s life isn\u2019t just an embodiment of the struggles, contradictions, creativity and promise of a generation. It also serves as a cautionary tale. His life\u2019s abrupt end was a consequence of the allure of success, much like the pull of the streets.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nick Lehr<\/a>, Editor, Arts and Culture, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nick Lehr, The Conversation To commemorate African-American Music Appreciation Month this June, California Senator Kamala Harris released a Spotify playlist with songs spanning genres and generations, from TLC\u2019s \u201cWaterfalls\u201d to Marvin Gaye\u2019s \u201cWhat\u2019s Going On.\u201d In a nod to the integral role African-American musicians play in the country\u2019s rich musical legacy, we\u2019ve decided to highlight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[2129,501,191,2192,2619,53,591,592,498,2545,420],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9427"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9500,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427\/revisions\/9500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}