Folk-Blues and the Advent of Rock & Roll
The most obvious, and often the most discussed, influence from the African-American community is in the area of blues and, ultimately, rock & roll. Blues vocalists like Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Memphis Minnie helped to popularize the blues across the racial divides of the time.
Other great blues legends like Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and BB King managed to take that work even further to directly influence the burgeoning sounds of what would become rock & roll, an American institution. These days, blues players like Keb Mo' and Taj Mahal blur the lines between blues, rock, and folk with their raw, gorgeous, infectious tunes that even occasionally flirt with the roots of country-western.
But the influences don't stop with blues, by any stretch of the imagination.
Civil Rights Songs
During the 1950s and 60s, as African-Americans around the country struggled for equal rights under the law, folksingers like Odetta, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and others joined with Martin Luther King, Jr., to spread the word of direct action through non-violence. They stood together with their neighbors and a community of white folksingers to re-teach the songs of their forefathers and foremothers. Civil Rights songs like “We Shall Overcome” and “Oh Freedom” were sung again and again in protest and solidarity, helping to organize communities, and ultimately to win the struggle for equal rights under the law.
Hip-Hop Emerges
By the 1970s, a new brand of folk music started to solidify in the African-American communities of major cities like Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, and Detroit. Hip-hop borrowed rhythms from across the musical spectrum – from ancient African drum calls to contemporary dance music. Artists used these rhythms and the art of spoken word to communicate the emotions – from celebration to frustration – that characterized their community.
In the 80s, groups like NWA, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, and Run DMC participated in what came to be an explosion in the popularity of hip-hop music. These groups and others brought the folk music of their communities fiercely into the public consciousness, rapping about racism, violence, politics, and poverty. At the same time they also addressed relationships, work, and other aspects of day-to-day life.
Now, from contemporary singer/songwriters like Vance Gilbert to hip-hop superstars like Common, African-American folk musicians continue to strongly influence the path of not only American music, but politics, civil rights, education, popular opinion, and the ever-evolving history of our nation.
