The things...People look passed the part that Africa is a large and diverse continent, but not only that slaves were taken all the way from Senegal all the way down to Angola. First off most the Africans that came to America came DIRECTLY from Africa, just like any other place in the diaspora, I think people sometimes confuse the slave trader stopping in an island such as Hispaniola as a resting point to refuel, before heading to North America, with them dropping off all of the African slaves in the Caribbean, and taking the Caribbean born slaves to America, and such was not the case for the most part. And people also tend to forget that there were plenty of America born slaves(essentially AAs) that ended up in the Caribbean in the 18th and 19th century, but that's another story.
More importantly the thing African-Americans culturally and musically apart from Afro-descendants from Latin-America and the Caribbean is that our music and culture is Sahelian/Sudanic cultural influence. Like I said most slaves in North America can directly from Africa, because certain slaves were needed for their specific skill(not no damn selective breeding, but that's another story). More slaves in North America compared to other parts of the diaspora(like Brazil, Jamaica, Haiti,etc) came from Upper West Africa Islamic influenced Sudanic/Sahelian region. Why? Because the cotton, rice, and cattle culture and the landscape of North America. Thus slaves from this specific region in Africa were said to be more fit for the type of labor to be done in North America.
Islam in the United States - Wikipedia
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Senegambia, the Gold Coast, and the Bight of Benin
http://mana-net.org/pages.php?ID=education&NUM=154
Famous white Natchez Mississippi planter/slaver, William Dunbar, express that Mississippi planters held a preference for Africans from the interior, stating "
there are certain nations from the interior of Africa the individuals of which I have always found more civilized, at least better disposed than those from the coast, such as Bornon, Houssa, Zanfara, Zegzeg, Kapina, and Tombootoo regions". "The bornon" are those from the bornu empire, the "Houssa" are the Hausa, "Kapina" refers to those from the Katsina region of present day northern /Vigeria and Southern Niger. "Zanfara" refers to the Zamfara region, another region in present day Northern /Vigeria and southern Niger. Tombootoo refers to the Bambara of Mail. All of these regions had heavy islamic influenced populations.
Islam in the United States - Wikipedia
Genetics:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0029687
Genome-wide comparison of African-ancestry populations from CARe and other cohorts reveals signals of natural selection - PubMed
Now... Now... For those who may have the wrong idea. I am not saying that AA's are largely of Muslim ancestry. No! Nor am I saying that AA's are ancestry largely come from those areas, BUT that compared to others of the diasporas, more slaves from the Savannah/Sahel/Islamic areas were shipped to North America than Latin-America and the Caribbean and thus largely influenced our culture. And because of that our music is mostly derived from the solo, string and wind based from the Savannah/Sahel areas.
To Be Continued in Next Post:
