16 Facts About African-American music

African-American music is an umbrella term covering a diverse range of music and musical genres largely developed by African Americans.

For example, "If one considers the five criteria given by Waterman as cluster characteristics for West African African-American music, one finds that three have been well documented as being characteristic of Afro- American African-American music.

African-American music spirituals were created in invisible and non-invisible Black churches.

Influence of African Americans on mainstream American African-American music began in the 19th century, with the advent of blackface minstrelsy.

African-American music founded the Drury Opera Company in 1900 and, although he used a white orchestra, he featured black singers in leading roles and choruses.

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African-American music was often adapted for white audiences, who would not have as readily accepted black performers, leading to genres like swing music, a pop-based outgrowth of jazz.

Concerts featured music written by black composers, notably Harry T Burleigh and Will Marion Cook.

In 1927, a concert survey of black music was performed at Carnegie Hall including jazz, spirituals and the symphonic music of W C Handy's Orchestra and the Jubilee Singers.

Rock African-American music thereafter became more associated with white people, though some black performers such as Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley had commercial success.

Soul African-American music, however, remained popular among black people through highly evolved forms such as funk, developed out of the innovations of James Brown.

However, this African-American music was integrated into popular African-American music achieving mainstream success.

Mating these experimental, usually DJ-oriented, sounds with the prevalence of the multi-ethnic New York City disco sound from the 1970s and 1980s created a brand of African-American music that was most appreciated in the huge discotheques that are located in cities like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Boston, etc.

The band's African-American music contained lyrics that attack what they perceived as the Eurocentrism and racism of America.

Furthermore, the African-American music was accompanied by aesthetically creative and unique African-American music videos.

Examples of these types of African-American music videos include but are not limited to: Beyonce's "Crazy in Love", Rihanna's "Pon de Replay", and Usher's "Caught Up".

African-American music entrepreneurs embraced record stores as key vehicles for economic empowerment and critical public spaces for black consumers at a time that many black-owned businesses were closing amid desegregation.