COUNTRY MUSIC WAS INFLUENCED BY AFRICAN MUSIC

COUNTRY MUSIC WAS INFLUENCED BY AFRICAN MUSIC

Murphy Browne © May 10-2024 

“I was wondering about our yesterdays,

and starting digging through the rubble

and to say, at least somebody went

through a hell of a lot of trouble

to make sure that when we looked things up

we wouldn't fare too well

and that we would come up with totally unreliable

portraits of ourselves.

But I compiled what few facts I could,

I mean, such as they are

to see if we could shed a little bit of light

and this is what I got so far:

First, white folks discovered Africa

and they claimed it fair and square.

Cecil Rhodes couldn't  have been robbing nobody

'cause he said there was nobody there.”

Excerpt from Black History/The World

by Gil Scott-Heron

In 1980, African American jazz poet, singer, musician,

author and spoken-word artist Gilbert Scott-Heron

released “Black History/The World” on the album:

“Moving Target.” Gil Scott-Heron deconstructed

colonialism, racism, and African history as told and

documented by people who were not African. Those

“historians” told their version of our story. In “Black

History/The World,” Gil Scot Heron illuminated the

African proverb: “Until the lions have their historians,

tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.”

Similarly, until the Africans from the African continent

and in the Diaspora began documenting their own stories,

everyone else told and wrote their version of African

stories. Gilbert Scott-Heron wrote and performed “Black

History/The World” in 1980. In 2024, several decades

later some people who do not know the African stories are

telling their version. 

I was reminded of Gil Scott-Heron’s “Black History/The World,” when I read about Asa Blanton, a white Indiana State University nursing student who said Beyoncé is "not country" because Beyoncé is not white. Blanton said in a video shared on TikTok: “I’m sorry, but if you’re Black, you’re not country. I don’t care, I wish I meant that in the nicest way, but babe, I know you were raised in the country or your grandparents were… but they was picking, OK? They wasn’t planting. Just keep that in mind. They wasn’t making money. They were getting sold for money. You ain’t country.”

Asa Blanton and many others like her do not know of the

historical African influence on country music, even

during the enslavement of Africans. "In reality, just like

most popular music genres, country music in the U.S.

began with Black People.” The story of country music

begins with the banjo. The modern-day banjo is a

descendant of a West African instrument, made from

gourds, called the Akonting. When Africans were taken

from Africa and enslaved in America, the knowledge of

making their instruments were with them. Enslaved

Africans created their own music, hymns, spirituals, and

field songs—all with roots in African music. The banjo

was seen as an exclusively African American instrument.

White people did not play the banjo during that time.

In the 1850s, minstrel shows became popular with the

racist satirical form of entertainment where white

performers in Blackface mockingly used the banjo as a

musical instrument as they imitated the music and dance

of enslaved Africans. The minstrel shows brought the

banjo to white audiences and gave rise to hillbilly music

during the 1920s.

Hillbilly music was renamed country and was claimed as

the music of the south. The performers drew inspiration

from slave spirituals, field songs, hymns, and the blues,

which were African American music. In the 1920s and

30s, despite segregation, some white hillbilly performers

collaborated with African American artists to record

music. Patrick Huber, a White history professor at

Missouri University of Science and Technology

acknowledges, “Nearly 50 African-American singers and

musicians appeared on commercial hillbilly records

between those years — because the music was not a white

agrarian tradition, but a fluid phenomenon passed back

and forth between the races.”

In 1778, James A. Bland, an African American from New

York wrote “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” which

became the official state song of Virginia in 1940. An

African American minister wrote a hymn “When the

World is On Fire.” That hymn became a 1928 hit “Little

Darling, Pal of Mine” by “The Carter Family,” a White

family of musicians. That song inspired “This Land is

Your Land” sung by White performer, Woody Guthrie.

In Nova Scotia Canada on May 12, 1785, under the heading "Negro Frolicks" Prohibited: “Officials in Nova Scotia ordered "50 Handbills [to] be immediately printed forbidding Negro Dances & Negro Frolicks in [the] town of Shelburne."

“Libya and Egypt used to be in Africa,

but they've been moved to the 'middle east'.

There are examples galore I assure you,

but if interpreting was left up to me

I'd be sure every time folks knew this version wasn't mine

which is why it is called 'His story.'”

Excerpt from Black History/The World

by Gil Scott-Heron

COUNTRY MUSIC WAS INFLUENCED BY AFRICAN MUSIC

Murphy Browne © May 10-2024