How African instruments, rhythms, and innovators shaped the genre long before it became a cultural symbol of the American South. […] The post Before Nashville, there was Africa: The untold Black story ...

Harry Pace saw that there was profit to be made by Black people producing and distributing music for Black people. —Willie Ruff, musician and professor emeritus, Yale University Preamble: In 2020, I ...

Early American banjo music is Black music. The banjo was created by enslaved African Americans, and according to the Smithsonian Institute, up until the 1830s, the banjo was exclusively an African ...

This quick study on the impact that African Americans made and continue to make on America's musical landscape focuses on Elvis Presley. While Elvis was a phenomenal commercial success, there were ...

Duke Ellington rejected it, Charles Mingus was ambivalent about it, and Wynton Marsalis is okay with it. For many African American musicians the word “jazz” is a double-edged term, sometimes ...

Black American music is music of the spirit, a profound diversity of lessons to be enjoyed. Never duplicated but often imitated, its drumbeats are heartbeats of the inner person that ignites American ...

Editor’s note: UPMC Washington Teen Outreach recently held its 15th Black History Month Essay Contest. Here is one of the winning essays. 4.3% of America’s population consists of thriving Black ...