Music, African American

Wide-ranging musical traditions of African Americans, which have played a dominant role in American music and represent one of the most significant expressions of African American culture. Early African American music in the United States joined African musical practices with the vocabulary and structures of European-American music. Comprising work songs, calls, field and street cries, hollers, rhyme songs, and spirituals, this music provided slaves with a means of effectively pacing their work, a form of sung prayer and praise, a means of surreptitious communication, and psychic relief from the degradation of bondage. Many of the work songs used Continue reading the remaining 91% ...