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The Influence of African Americans on Music
The Influence of African Americans on Music
Rock and roll music and the black community
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The author’s thesis for this article is to establish that the copyright laws during this time influenced the African-American music industry, copyright laws were designed to help spread cultural production but ultimately the African-American community was faced with inequality. The author introduces this topic by exploring the successful musical life of James Brown. James Brown is considered to be the inventor of soul music, bringing back African-American music to the forefront of the music industry in the United States during the 1900’s, James Brown’s music contributed to the civil rights movement in the 1960’s, often performing for African-American communities and their political parties. James Brown’s music was such an influence that it stopped riots and calmed angry citizens. The author uses many other scholars in order to establish that copyright law had both a negative effect and positive effect towards the African-American community. By examining James Brown’s career, we can establish that copyright laws had extremely poor protection towards an artist’s style allowing many imitators during this time. For example, when an artist style becomes very ironic and redefines a genre, their ideas are defined as a style, allowing other artist to copy them. This caused artists like Scott Joplin, …show more content…
For example, James Brown’s music influenced the creation of both Disco and Gangster rap, allowing these two genres to become their own art forms. If copyright laws were overly protective of one’s work, many art forms that we now know today wouldn’t exist and artists like Eminem, Drake, Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and Tupac would have never had the chance to shake the world with their musical talents. If we allow copyright laws to become overly protective it will only result in hindering the future of
Although Barnes’ marriage was not a successful one, he adored his newborn baby girl, and was heartbroken when his wife left him, taking his daughter with her. At North Carolina College, Barnes majored in art, and developed his own style (Artist Vitae, 1999). When Barnes was a freshman in college he went on a field trip to the newly desegregated North Carolina Museum of Art. At the museum Barnes noticed that there weren’t any works by black artist displayed, and when he asked the guide where the black artists were exhibited, the guide responded, “your people don’t express themselves this way” (Artist Vitae, 1999). That negative response encouraged Barnes to work hard at becoming an artist.
“We stuck to who we were at Motown, and the world came around.” Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown records relayed at the Occidental College’s 125th commencement ceremony in 2007. Motown was “the new voice of America” due to its great impact and influence on the music industry and society. Numerous events were happening in America at that time and Berry Gordy identified several of these factors to target the music of Motown and its artists to young audiences in specific ways. There were various social, musical and cultural factors that were critically important and of these factors, Gordy identified the segregation and the civil rights movement, the music and cultural aspects of the black community at that time.
Throughout history, and even today, music has shaped America’s culture, society, and even politics. One of the most outstanding and enduring musical movement has been from African American artists, ranging from bebop to jazz to hip-hop to rap. During the 1920’s , jazz artists stepped into the limelight and began their impact on American and even world history. Louis Armstrong was one of the most influential leaders during the Harlem Renaissance and his jazz legacy and impact of American history is everlasting. A master of his craft, Armstrong and his music heavily influenced America’s white and black populations from the 1920’s and up until his death.
Before beginning to analyze both Motown and Stax Record’s influence on black consciousness it must first be understood why black consciousness itself can be seen as a step in the right direction in the fight against black struggle. Brian Ward does a great job of capturing the true success of soul music’s influence on black consciousness. Ward says, “[Black radio’s] real strength… was its ability to dramatize and celebrate shared aspects of the black experience… to promote a revived sense of black identity, pride, solidarity and common consciousness” (Ward 449). In his book, Ward also points out that despite this successful development of black consciousness, there was limited success both economically and structurally on behalf of the black music industry. This shows that even though ther...
Moreover, the task at hand is not one that is easily accomplished. In order for music to be a hit, it had to be a hit within the white community. The ...
Before the war started, a wealthy white man by the name of John Hammond worked to integrate black and white music.1 Since his childhood, he enjoyed the music of numerous black artists, and he wanted to share his love with the rest of America. He used much of his inherited fortune to make this possible. He went against the general opinion of society and his parents, who despised black people. Hammond refused to ignore black artists’ musical abilities because of their color, “I did not revolt against the system, I simply refused to be a part of it.”2 He used his money to organize the most eclectic group of musicians ever assembled, for an integrated audience of his time. Hammond’s efforts made an indelible impact on the music industry. The musicians Hammond introduced in...
In African American Studies/Literature I walked in thinking that I could be told nothing about African American culture or history because I’m African American. In some ways I knew that racism existed but I learned how it has been subtle in control the way we think. We have learned that colonization has not ended and that in many ways we are still being oppressed. In this paper I’m going to show how African American has used hip hop and black hair are two ways in which African Americans embrace their culture and fighting oppression. However, as we have review in many classes oppression is not easily escaped. So in this paper I’m going to show how cultural appropriation is used as a way of oppressing black culture. So this paper will be an expansion of what we have learned in the
Throughout her essay, Ryan presents many ways to stop plagiarists. She believes that plagiarism “denigrates grades, degrees, and even institutions.” Her stance is clear cut and to the point. Rojas, however, has a looser view of bootlegging. He believes that the world “should be embracing bootlegs” since “[they’re] part of the natural evolution of all things digital.” He claims that bootlegging has done no harm, but may actually be stimulating the music industry. This is vastly different from Ryan’s rigid point of view.
This article was a very interesting look at the music industry and how copyright vs. sampling works in that field. It made me think of copyright lawsuits in fine art and how the courts determine if an artist copying or was inspired by a work.
Harlem provided a source of entertainment for many people. With its Jazz Clubs and poetry readings it was the “hip” place to be. This was a shock to many African-American’s, who had never before had the opportunity to perform in such affluent surroundings. Oftentimes funding for these clubs or programs was provided by White Americans. This in itself was not a problem. However, the Harlem Renaissance became so dependant on the funding that when it stopped coming, there was no means by which to keep any of the clubs or literary cafes open. Some clubs in Harlem even discriminated against Black audience members. The popular Cotton Club, which featured solely Black performers, even went so far as to ban African-Americans’ from its audience entirely. Even in the Mecca of supposed racial equality, these sorts of discrimination were still prevalent. Advertisements for products produced by African-Americans were also skewed. Para...
Music Copyright is a very important aspect of the music industry. The Copyright law was established to preserve the creativity and rights of authors, composers, performers of expression. Copyright is the law that protects the property rights of the creator of an original work in a fixed tangible medium. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/copyright) A fixed tangible medium is something substantial like copying lyrics on paper or putting a song on tape or CD. Copyright can be seen every where in the music industry. Many music artist of our culture today have been involved in copyright issues. Recently, on MTV news it was stated that, "As the music industry becomes increasingly concerned about protecting the integrity of artists copyrights in the age of MP3. Prince has now filed a motion in New York federal court aimed at shutting down several websites offering free downloads of the Artist's songs." (http://www.mtv.com…19990304/prince.jhtml) In addition, in recent music news, "Nine Inch Nails lead man Trent Reznor copyright infringement suit was dismissed. Another artist claimed that the Reznor had stolen material for his last album." (http://www.mtv.com…19991202/nine_inch_nails.jhtml) The copyright law has become an important legal aspect to know our music generation.
As it mentioned above, the title itself, draws attention to the world-renowned music created by African Americans in the 1920s’ as well as to the book’s jazz-like narrative structure and themes. Jazz is the best-known artistic creation of Harlem Renaissance. “Jazz is the only pure American creation, which shortly after its birth, became America’s most important cultural export”(Ostendorf, 165). It evolved from the blues
Copyright is not a natural process; it is essentially an agreement between the state and an artist, where the state gives the artist a monopoly on works they make for a certain time in hopes that this artist will continue to create more works. This agreement is beneficial for all parties; the artist gets money for their work (as no one is allowed to produce copies unless granted permission) and an incentive to create new works. The state has artisans to keep the public happy.
Powell, A. (2007). The Music of African Americans and its Impact on the American Culture in the 1960’s and the 1970’s. Miller African Centered Academy, 1. Retrieved from http://www.chatham.edu/pti/curriculum/units/2007/Powell.pdf