Music and Black liberation refers to music associated with Black political movements for emancipation, civil rights, or self-determination. The connection between music and politics has been used in many cultures and was utilized by blacks in their struggle for freedom and civil rights. Music has been used by African Americans over the course of United States history to express feelings of struggle and hope, as well as to foster a sense of solidarity to aid their fight for liberation and justice. African Americans have used music as a way to express their struggle for freedom and equality which has spanned the history of the United States which has resulted in the creation and popularization of many music genres including, jazz, funk, disco, rap, and hip hop. Many of these songs and artists played pivotal roles in generating support for the civil rights movement.
History
Before the 20th century
African American slave songs (19th century)
With the beginning of the 16th century came the Atlantic slave trade which was responsible for the enslavement and transportation of over 12 million Africans from its inception until it was disbanded in the 19th century. The slave trade involved the capture and enslavement of free African peoples of which a majority were brought to the Americas. As the descendants of an enslaved population, music provided African Americans with an opportunity to experience the idea of freedom before it became a reality with the passing of the 14th Amendment in 1868. Under the ever-present and watchful eye of their masters, slaves were forced to develop creative and clever mechanisms of masking their rebellion which was often manifested in song. Slaves would often hold private worship meetings which provided a temporary to escape from their enslavement and created a communal environment in which they could find comfort in each other. The subject of many slave songs was liberation and rebellion; however, they would conceal the true meaning of their freedom songs through references to symbols and by reworking traditional worship songs in order to illude their masters. They would play drums and dance as a way of expressing their culture and also as a way to rally their slave community together in unity. Many times music encouraged and spurred uprisings and revolts.
There have been several developments in understanding the origins of slave songs, which represent a unique mixture of African roots with European and New World influences. Scholars generally identify three distinct streams within this musical tradition: the retention of African music, the creation of a new Afro-American music, and the blending of Negro music with the songs of white Caucasians. From this fusion, enslaved people in the New World forged a distinct culture and identity—one defined by long-suffering and struggle, but also by profound hope and solidarity. This complex reality is powerfully etched into the slave songs of the 18th and 19th centuries.
While these songs provided a crucial spiritual reprieve and a sense of community, their very fabric was woven with threads of sorrow. They were far more than simple diversions; they were a coded language of resistance, a chronicle of daily life, and a vessel for deep, unspoken pain. Above all, the songs of the slaves resonate as raw, artistic expressions of human sorrow, giving voice to the troubled spirits of those who created and sang them..
20th Century
Civil Rights Movement
Even in the midst of Jim Crow, music provided a form of cultural autonomy in which African Americans were able to continue a tradition of accommodation and resistance. Musical tradition, such as group singing, was used to express solidarity, cultural pride, inspiration, and hope among the early activists. Many artists wrote their music to speak out against the injustice that they saw around them. There were many musical artists who added their voice to those who sang the slave songs of the past, and many of those slave songs were the inspiration for these musical artists. Music provided a rhetorical outlet that allowed movement leaders and supporters, such as Aretha Franklin, to garner support from a large audience with diverse backgrounds. Aretha Franklin, called the Queen of Soul, championed the rights and freedoms of African Americans. In her song, "Think," Aretha sings again and again, "Freedom!" as a way to draw attention to the black freedom struggle. Throughout the 20th century, Franklin supported the Civil Rights Movement and financially donated to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As early as 1939, Billie Holiday sang and popularized the song "Strange Fruit", which commented on lynchings in the south.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) used A Capella groups and popular artists like Dick Gregory to deepen bonds with local communities, embolden the fearful, and even raise money for the cause at community events throughout the South. SNCC organized a musical tour of The Freedom Singers, a quartet group consisting of the African American musicians, Charles Neblett, Bernice Johnson, Rutha Mae Harris, and Cordell Reagon. This group would hold musical concerts and a meetings to encourage people to register to vote and become informed of their civil rights. Donations collected at these concerts provided nearly $50,000 for the SNCC to be able to continue their education on civil rights across the country. In 1964, The Ku Klux Klan would sometimes burn crosses on the lawn outside the halls where the concerts were being held, but while there was great opposition to these concerts, the music gave African Americans a voice and put them on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement. Activist and folk singer Pete Seeger noted the importance of music in the Civil Rights Movement and was a notable conduit of music within the movement. Seeger was known to have helped spread the song ‘We Shall Overcome” to civil rights workers at the Highlander Folk School, which became an anthem of civil justice activism. This demonstrates the power of music in the black freedom struggle, and the ways that civil rights activists utilized songs to inspire and empower the movement.
Free jazz
Overlapping with the Civil Rights Movement, jazz musicians such as Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra pushed the boundaries of jazz as a musical form, embracing free improvisation and rejecting various forms and elements previously associated with jazz music."A Fireside Chat with Marc Ribot". All About Jazz. Accessed 2013-01-28. Free jazz was seen as a reaction, not only to the strictures of jazz as a musical form, but to the political turmoil of the mid-20th century and the continued oppression of Black people in the United States. Some free jazz musicians, such as Ed Blackwell and Leon Thomas, also incorporated elements of traditional African music and other non-Western influences in their music.
Anti-colonialist and Pan-African movements
Prominent African musicians have been associated with anti-colonial movements in the 20th century, such as Miriam Makeba, Dorothy Masuka, Fela Kuti, and Sonny Okosun. Starting in Jamaica but soon gaining popularity around the world, reggae artists like Bob Marley also embraced Pan-African ideals in their music.
In the case of the parallel struggles of apartheid South Africa and Jim Crow America, the black freedom struggle was bridged by jazz music and the oftentimes covert political activism it disseminated. While Brown v Board represented an avenue for dismantling of white supremacy in the United States, white supremacy was being rigidly upheld and protected in South Africa. One response to the incredible hardships imposed by South African apartheid was the enjoyment of township jazz, which was unashamedly inspired by “American Negro jazz and hammered out on the anvil of the South African experience.” Jazz music was characterized by its spontaneity, but was also commonly employed by U.S. and South African Jazz women as a scathing critique of colonialism and violence against blacks. Jazz had the uncanny ability to reach unsuspecting, diverse crowds many of whom had no intention of being sucked into the civil rights movement. However, the ability for this music and its artists to humanize black people and highlight the inhumane and cruel actions taken daily against them served as a powerful tool. Combined with the soulful and melancholy melody of many songs of this genre, jazz artists had a unique opportunity to spread the message of black liberation.
Late 20th century
Following the Civil Rights Era, music remained an integral aspect of expressing political and racial ideology. The black freedom struggle remained intertwined in the lyrical inspiration of Jazz, Funk, Disco, Rock, and eventually Rap and Hip Hop. Though protests and social movements became increasingly less frequent in the 1970s and 1980s, music maintained a rhetorical space in which African Americans had their own counter culture that challenged the power structure and dominant political ideology of the time. Jazz musicians used their music to explore the implications and ideological implications of blackness. Funk music was used by black youth after the euphoria of the civil rights movement faded to express their own concerns with poverty, segregation, and the plight of the working class. Disco music started in black queer communities as a way to escape discrimination and "dissolve of restrictions on black/gay people". Black rock music combined with political voices against the Vietnam War, most notably seen in Jimi Hendrix and his song "Machine Gun".
Hip Hop rose to popularity in the 1980s and was born in urban, predominantly African American and Latino communities that had high rates of unemployment, crime, and poverty. Rap and Hip Hop became the tools of expression for black male ghetto youth, a group that was once largely invisible to mainstream society, giving them a platform to use confrontational and political poetics to express dissatisfaction with the realities of black America. One of the first blatantly political raps is accredited to Brother D and the Collective Effort's 1980 single “How We Gonna Make the Black Nation Rise?” which criticized the United States for being a police state and expressed contempt for historical injustices such as slavery and ethnic cleansing. Drawing on their own experiences with racism, hip hop groups such as N.W.A. emerged releasing music that was politically aimed to comment on police brutality and other racial tensions of the period.
21st century Music has continued to be an important venue for the expression of Black politics and the denunciation of racism and colonialism into the 21st century. Two of Fela Kuti's children, Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti have continued to use afrobeat as a venue for expressing Pan-African, anti-colonial politics. In the United States, hip hop artists like The Coup, Immortal Technique, and Kendrick Lamar, have continued to produce politically charged music, picking up where groups like N.W.A. left off.
Associated genres Due to the diversity of cultures in Africa and in the African diaspora, as well as the long history of various freedom struggles around the world, many different genres of music have been associated with Black liberation.
Spirituals