How Music Has Changed The Lives Of Black People

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Introduction:

Music and music make by black people have always been something that the world was trying to separate. Even though many people do not know, most popular music genres played today were either stolen or made by black slaves. Yet, they still don’t give the credit to the rightful person. This essay talks about the problems in the black communities how music fixes problems and how over the centuries, black people and music have influenced many things in the world but the one main thing that still lives in all of us today is music.

The Origin of Music

Music comes from many places and has a vast of different genres. Most music currently, like rock and roll, blues, rap, R&B, or rhythm and blues, and even country, can …show more content…

Kelly, Aaliyah, Tupac, Biggie, and Beyoncé. (YW. Feng 2018). R&B, including hip-hop, helped the black community gain the traction and well-deserved attention they have always been waiting for. Along with the new generation of music, there was a new generation of black singers and rappers that little black kids could look up to and sing and dance to. This genre helped black people get out of their shells and express who they were and who they wanted to be. Not only did the music get millions of listeners, but it also created an entire world of black people waiting for their chance to be heard and seen. Through the use of music videos, and lyrics, these artists were able to spread awareness of black issues and therefore allow black communities to slowly rebuild themselves. Every black artist made it possible for the black community to gain an important voice in America and other countries. (YW. Feng 2018). Hip-hop and R&B have been growing even more since the 2000s, and the black community is still stronger than it was back …show more content…

If two people liked a song, they would bond over it and maybe even listen to it together. For the black community, music means way more than liking the tune or melody. In the black community, music has been one of the prime ways for us to communicate and talk to each other without direct words.

Slaves were forbidden to read, write, or play instruments out of the slaveowners' fear that they would communicate with each other. Despite this, the slaves still found new ways to tell each other things using their bodies and their mouths through words and dance.

After Africans were "brought to America in captivity and sold into slavery, they carried their culture with them as best they could". (American Experience). Back in the 20th century, music was used by captured and freed slaves to signal different messages to each other. They would sing different songs with specific lyrics to let others know what they were currently planning or about to do. An example of a song is the one Harriet Tubman used to help free captured slaves. The song includes: "Oh, go down, Moses, Way down into Egypt’s land, tell old Pharaoh, let my people go.". This specific song was sung to let people know it is not safe to come out; there is danger in the