How did African Americans become the "coolest" race in the world?

[Kyle C. Barker]

It started in the 1800s when white people took interest in the slave instrument known as the banjo....and then minstrel music/show was born

The Old Plantation is an American folk art watercolor likely painted in the late 18th century on a South Carolina plantation.[3][4][5] It is notable for its early date, its credible, non-stereotypical depiction of slaves on the North American mainland, and the fact that the slaves are shown pursuing their own interests. The artist has been identified as South Carolina slaveholder John Rose, and the painting may depict his plantation in what is now Beaufort County.

Gahdamn we made the banjo too?




You stay dropping jewels breh

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Gahdamn we made the banjo too?




You stay dropping jewels breh

banjo came from one of these





bonus

 

[mbewane]

It's much bigger than that and older. Even the music's that one thinks is wholly local is Afram influenced. The entire world of "White Rock" was birthed out of Afram music. There would be no British Invasion without Afram music. You can go to what one thinks is indegenous African music and you will find the Afram roots/influences in popular genres such as

afrobeat
afrobeatz
soukous
highlife
marabi

...Go to Asia.....all that K-Pop/J-pop? Afram influenced....Jamaica? A country that listened and watched Afram music like no other to form their musical styles.

You're right, every single song ever produced in the world is Afram influenced.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

You're right, every single song ever produced in the world is Afram influenced.

save the sarcasm for the people who don't know better Are you willing to argue against what I posted and you quoted? Everybody that's seen me post knows I will come with those receipts since I only post FACTs and the TRUTH

 

[Marco Andretti]

Tbh ...


We've always had sauce .. think about what u said

We've just been free for 200 years n they already taking everything.

They actually tried to hold us down n take over..

They couldn't . So their thing was ..

If we can't beat em.

Let em join us n we'll just take from em..

 

[mbewane]

save the sarcasm for the people who don't know better Are you willing to argue against what I posted and you quoted? Everybody that's seen me post knows I will come with those receipts since I only post FACTs and the TRUTH

If you say so breh I actually grew up in CAR and I fail to see any afram influence in local music but hey, Americans believe they invented everything, it's not really something worth arguing a lot about tbh

 

[IllmaticDelta]

If you say so breh I actually grew up in CAR and I fail to see any afram influence in local music but hey,

As I said before, many things from Aframs that were absorbed in Africa are so old that the influences have become normalized and are taken at face value as 100% indigenous ideas/practices. For example, I once posted this about South Africa

Pantsula is a syncopated, quick-stepping, low to the ground form of dance which evokes the urban street culture of which it is a part. It is performed by groups of dancers who practice together for many hours each week. It provides a powerful, stylized form of expression for those who dance it. As one pantsula dancer describes it “we have drive, we are one, we have power, we are young, strong and quick, we have our own style and we are competitive.”[1] For pantsula, the group is very important to the dance.

It developed from the Sotho dances Mqaquanga and Marabi with influence by 1930's American jazz.[3] Later evolutions of pantsula dancing in the 1980s were influenced by American hiphop and breakdance.[2] Quick, darting steps in geometric lines with an uneven rhythmic quality characterize this form of movement. The Charleston, a knock-kneed manoeuvre from American jazz, as well as popping and locking found in American hiphop are also found in this form of dance. The word itself, pantsula, is Zulu and refers to “waddling like a duck.” This flat-footed move with buttocks sticking out behind the body is commonplace in the dance form.[4]

Pantsula is divided into three distinct styles: Western Style, Slow Poison, and Futhuza. Western Style is the most typically found form, and it is highly rigorous. Arms remain wrapped around an upright torso while the feet move in extremely fast and particular shuffling and jumping movements as groups of dancers move in and out of geometric formations. This form requires good physical command of the body. Slow Poison is like Western style in form—mostly stationary arms with intricate lower body movements but it is performed in a slow, steady fashion with a constant beat. Futhuza is infused with elements of American breakdancing and hiphop. This form utilizes the somewhat disjointed, sometimes fluid, robotic motion of popping and locking

Pantsula - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

or Highlife out of West Africa

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If you listen to African (Afro-Pop) popular music through the years it makes it easier to see just exactly what type of music they were listening to because it reflects in their music. There are many compilations out with the sounds they were making in the respective time periods

.......you don't just start making music of sounds foreign to your land w/o first hearing and listening to the root sources The music that became Afro-Pop was based on new World Black music's.

 

[mbewane]

As I said before, many things from Aframs that were absorbed in Africa are so old that the influences have become normalized and are taken at face value as 100% indigenous ideas/practices. For example, I once posted this about South Africa







Pantsula - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

or Highlife out of West Africa

.
.
If you listen to African (Afro-Pop) popular music through the years it makes it easier to see just exactly what type of music they were listening to because it reflects in their music. There are many compilations out with the sounds they were making in the respective time periods

.......you don't just start making music of sounds foreign to your land w/o first hearing and listening to the root sources The music that became Afro-Pop was based on new World Black music's.

Key-word "later evolutions". Of course EthioJAZZ is influenced by Jazz, we all know Fela spent time in the US and English-speaking countries were obviously influenced by first the UK, then the US. But electronic music had indeed a lot of influence in SA for example, why would that be an Afram influence and not a Euro one? Especially knowing the links with the UK and the Netherlands. Indeed, the article about highlife cites Euro influences as well.

But I fail to see how Soukouss, Ndombolo, Zouk, Funana, Mbalax, etc...are influenced by Afram music. Why, because a guitar and drums are used?

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Key-word "later evolutions". Of course EthioJAZZ is influenced by Jazz, we all know Fela spent time in the US and English-speaking countries were obviously influenced by first the UK, then the US. But electronic music had indeed a lot of influence in SA for example, why would that be an Afram influence and not a Euro one? Especially knowing the links with the UK and the Netherlands. Indeed, the article about highlife cites Euro influences as well.

House music is Afram music





Where House Found A Home: Chicago and South Africa’s House Music Explosion

My dearest Chicago, you are the architect for the house that Jack built, but did you have any idea that your music was fueling the rage and resistance against apartheid? Did you know that this electronic music created in your mama’s basement would become a part of the cultural fabric of one of the most historically complex places on earth? That House Music is a part of the Mandelas’ (both Winnie and Nelson’s) cultural vocabulary?

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House Music in South Africa did not start with the hyper-talented and contemporary Black Coffee, Culoe de Song and Soulistic crew; in fact, House in South Africa has roots almost as long as Hip-Hop’s golden era in the Boogie Down Bronx.

DJ Clive Bean of Soul Candi Records remembers hearing Chicago’s Frankie Knuckles in 1987 at a local stockvel, which is the South African equivalent of a Harlem speakeasy. “We listened to this sound that we called international music, and thought, this is hardcore music, different from the bubble gum artists like Brenda Fassie most of us were listening to at the time.” Clive shared that House Music went hand in hand with Pantsula dancing, a local and traditional dance that came to life in the townships, primarily in the ’80s and gained momentum with the dismantling of the apartheid regime.

South African musician/musicologist Thokozani Mhlambi talks about House Music in the post democracy context. “House Music is the same age as our democratic dispensation in South Africa [18 years old]. The increase in access to overseas sound material in the early 1990s led to House Music’s growth locally.”

Clive Bean of Soul Candi remembers hearing Chicago’s Frankie Knuckles in 1987 at a local stockvel, the South African equivalent of a Harlem speakeasy. ‘We listened to this sound and thought, this is hardcore music, different from the bubblegum artists most of us were listening to at the time.’

With the support of a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study grant, I paid a visit to South Africa, determined to understand The Afro Digital Migration: House Music in Post Apartheid South Africa. I wanted to explore how House Music took root in South Africa and shaped its national identity. The impetus for this research was my belief that electronic music in the African Diaspora is an under-explored cultural product. As a DJ, I was driven by the clean production and seamless mixes I heard; as a dancer, I wanted to witness the intricate body movement inspired by House; and as a scholar, I wanted to figure out how, in the face of state-sanctioned surveillance and harassment, the music flourished.

Most of the DJs, musicians and producers I connected with in Joburg, Cape Town, Newcastle and Durban mentioned Frankie Knuckles as being their introduction to House Music in the late ’80s/early ’90s. Clive Bean adds, “We were listening to this music at the height of [apartheid] resistance.” House Music was a part of the soundtrack of social change and was the underground answer to the chains of restriction imposed by the Dutch/British minority who occupied South Africa through the system of apartheid. In fact, the Bronx, the South Side of Chicago and South Africa were all united by the stank of disenfranchisement and the electronic music inspired by the lived reality of people in all three places amplified the inequalities that connected black people around the world.

Where House Found A Home: Chicago and South Africa's House Music Explosion

But I fail to see how Soukouss, Ndombolo, Zouk, Funana, Mbalax, etc...are influenced by Afram music. Why, because a guitar and drums are used?

you have to be aware of musical structures, ideas, patterns, dances etc..

For example, I bet most modern black South Africans aren't aware that they sing like this because 80-100 year old Afram influences but the South African's from that time were aware of it






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here goes something to start you off

Marabi is a style of township music that evolved in South Africa over the last century.

The early part of the 20th century saw the increasing urbanisation of black South Africans in mining centres such as the gold mining area around Johannesburg - the Witwatersrand. This led to the development of township slums or ghettos, and out of this hardship came forth new forms of music, marabi and kwela amongst others.[1]

Marabi was the name given to a keyboard style (often using cheap pedal organs) that had a musical link to American jazz, ragtime and blues, with roots deep in the African tradition. Early marabi musicians were part of an underground musical culture and were typically not recorded. Indeed, as with early jazz in the USA, the music incurred the displeasure of the establishment. Nonetheless, as with early jazz, the lilting melodies and catchy rhythms of marabi found their way into the sounds of popular dance bands with a distinctively South African style.[1]

The sound of marabi was intended to draw people into local bars or "shebeens" (where illicit drinks like skokiaan were sold), and to get them dancing. "Shebeens" resemble the American speakeasies of the prohibition era where American Jazz was very popular.

Kwela is a pennywhistle-based street music from southern Africa with jazzy underpinnings and a distinctive, skiffle-like beat. It evolved from the marabi sound and brought South African music to international prominence in the 1950s.

 

[mbewane]

House music is Afram music





Where House Found A Home: Chicago and South Africa’s House Music Explosion




Where House Found A Home: Chicago and South Africa's House Music Explosion




you have to be aware of musical structures, ideas, patterns, dances etc..

For example, I bet most modern black South Africans aren't aware that they sing like this because 80-100 year old Afram influences but the South African's from that time were aware of it






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.

here goes something to start you off

Props for all of this, but electronic music is more than house music breh...and you keep using SA as an example, and I agree with what you're saying, but that's just ONE country, the examples I ws talking about are in other African countries where I see less (or none) Afram influence in the music. Which makes sense, since SA is mostly english-speaking while Central (CAR, both Congos, Ivory Coast...) or Western (Senegal, Cap-Vert) African countries I'm talking about are not.

 

[Poitier]

English-speaking countries were obviously influenced by first the UK, then the US. But electronic music had indeed a lot of influence in SA for example, why would that be an Afram influence and not a Euro one?

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Props for all of this, but electronic music is more than house music breh...

House is the father of modern electronic dance music. The most influential and root style of House in SA is Deep House.

and you keep using SA as an example, and I agree with what you're saying, but that's just ONE country, the examples I ws talking about are in other African countries where I see less (or none) Afram influence in the music.

A quick look at the the genres you mentioned...

Mbalax (or Mbalakh) is the national popular dance music of Senegal and the Gambia. Mbalax is a fusion of popular Western music and dance such as jazz, soul, Latin, and rock blended with sabar, the traditional drumming and dance music of Senegal. The genre's name derived from the heavy use of accompanying rhythms used in sabar called mbalax.

Ndombolo is a Congolese music genre and dance style,[2] also popular in other African countries such as Kenya[3] and Madagascar. It is derived from kwassa kwassa.

Soukous

Of course the Congolese in France and Brussels lived and breathed it already, but we were new to the joys and exuberance of Congolese rumba and soukous. Congolese music combines both African and Cuban styles into a magical mix of dance grooves and pleasure. There was also the influence of American soul music, of James Brown and, in Wemba’s case, Otis Redding. Soukous derives from the French verb secouer, which means “to shake.” Shake your hips, your booty that is. In salsa music it’s “muevete.” In Trinidadian calypso and soca, the equivalent is “wind your waist.”

Papa Wemba, Congolese Soukous Superstar and Sapeur RIP

Kwassa kwassa (or kwasa kwasa) is a music subgenre of soukous[1] and a dance rhythm from the Democratic Republic of the Congo that started in the 1970s where the hips move back and forth while the hands move to follow the hips. It was very popular in Africa in the late 1980s.

Zouk has always had jazz and funk influences

Zouk was developed and first reached popularity in the Antillean Islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Lucia and Dominica. Guadeloupe and Martinique are states of France whereas St. Lucia and Dominica are independent nations with greater legacy of English colonialism. All four Islands however, speak French-based creole languages that are mutually intelligible. The same with the music of the Antillean Islands, which has due to vivid exchange and cross-fertilization become a shared ground for cultural development of all four islands. (4) Zouk can be seen as a synthesis of many Caribbean music genres and several popular music styles from the United States. (5) The Flow Chart bellow shows the influences that led to zouk.

Beginning from the base up the first three musical influences on zouk were calypso, biguine and jazz. Calypso is a dance genre that developed in Trinidad primarily by lower-class Afro-Trinidadians since the 1700. Calypso has always had its counterparts on other islands in the Caribbean but it is in Trinidad and Tobago that it has flourished the most. By the second half of the 19th century diverse genres of Trinidadian music came to be centred in Carnival. The slaves soon took over these festivities making the French and British folk retreating in fear. For that reason the government forbid the use of drums in 1880 which led to massive protest and eventually to a new development in the calypso. The more formalized mas bands (carnival bands) started to play in tents where they would practice their songs. These tents were soon beginning to attract visitors and as the songs grew more soloistic and refined they were called calypso. These new forms of calypso were text- oriented songs performed for a seated audience. The calypso continuously gained popularity during the 20th century with hits like 'Rum and Coca Cola' by Andrew's Sisters in 1940 that sold 5 million times in the United States. The modern Calypso has again developed due to Trinidad's achievement of independence 1962 and the new invention soca. soca was an invention of Lord Shorty who set out to improve calypso's accompanying patterns in 1977. Together with the arranger Ed Watson he came up with a composite pattern they called soca, which has been the norm in most calypso since. The terms soca and calypso are used interchangeably, but soca is used specifically to refer to dance music while calypso is more text oriented. (7)

The biguine is a significant origin for the rhythm of zouk. The biguine’s evolution can be traced in the following types of music: Haitian compas direct and cadence-rampa through the rhythmic pattern played on the cymbals, which is identical to the rhythm of the biguine; Dominican Cadence-lypso through the Rhythmic patterns played on the high hat; and zouk which is thought to be a synthesis of these different rhythms. Biguine comes from the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique and has been a very poplar music style among dance orchestras from the 1930's to the 50's. The musicians of these dance orchestras of that time mostly had their debut at the Pointe-à-Pitre Philharmonic Orchestra, created in 1903. When this orchestra split up in 1921 a new group, Minerve, was created. Other dance orchestras were formed following this example many of them during the late 50’s and early 60’s. Dance orchestras performed in the same style as American big bands, seated behind music stands, playing a repertoire of tangos, Viennese waltzes, mambos and jazz. Only local music, like biguine, valse créole and mazurka were played by ear. With the up coming of the groups from Pointe-à-Pitre Guadeloupian music took new directions. Where the dance orchestras in the 40’s included up the 20 people the younger groups from the 60’s performed in a more intimate setting of around 7 musicians. In the 1960’s the group Les Vikings was created and later taken over by Guy Jacquet, Pierre-Éduard Décimus and Camille Hildevert became the leaders of the group. The were inspired by young American groups such as Kool Kool and the Gang and Blood Sweat and Tears and they started to incorporate the rhythms and compositional tools into their sound. When Les Vikings broke up, Décimus and Jacquet formed a new group named Caso Viking Guadeloupe Exploration. From this group the band Kassav’ emerged in the 80’s making the sound of zouk popular far beyond the border of the Caribbean islands. (8)

Jazz was a very influential music style developed in the early 20th century mostly by African-American communities of the southern United States. The roots of jazz lie in the combination of African-based music with European elements of harmony and form. The African influences can be noticed in the use of improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, blue notes, swung notes and the use of call and response singing. Jazz has had direct influence on calypso and biguine and is later returning as a source of inspiration for the soca and through Soul and Funk also for zouk.

BZA Dance School - History of Zoukmusic

Which makes sense, since SA is mostly english-speaking while Central (CAR, both Congos, Ivory Coast...) or Western (Senegal, Cap-Vert) African countries I'm talking about are not.

see above...the afram influences cuts through language barriers

 

[mbewane]

House is the father of modern electronic dance music. The most influential and root style of House in SA is Deep House.




A quick look at the the genres you mentioned...







Soukous



Papa Wemba, Congolese Soukous Superstar and Sapeur RIP








Zouk has always had jazz and funk influences

BZA Dance School - History of Zoukmusic








see above...the afram influences cuts through language barriers

I'm gonna listen to all of this tonight because when I listen to kwassa-kwassa soukouss and all that I don't really hear any of that, but if Tabuley or Rochereau themselves say so...but as the sources you posted yourself, they speak of various influences (Euro, Caribbean, Latin), not only Afram, which makes sense.

 

[mbewane]

 

[IllmaticDelta]