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Pop music is all about group-think but in a positive way. But the expectation is now that pop is also politically populist and that a country should limit itself to its own music. America does not have its own style as other countries do. It is essentially all from Africa, directly, or indirectly via the West Indies, then through New York.

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Excerpt Library (Music II): "Discuss American music's African roots"

The African roots of American music are fundamental to its development, providing the rhythmic, melodic, and cultural frameworks for nearly every major modern genre, from the blues and jazz to hip-hop and house music. These roots are not merely stylistic but are deeply tied to the sociological result of a painful existence born out of slavery.

1. The Rhythmic Foundation

The most distinct marker of African influence in American music is its complex rhythmic structure.

• Polyrhythms and Entrainment: African musical traditions often emphasize polyrhythmic textures, where multiple repeating patterns overlap to create a rich, perceptually diverse experience. This is closely linked to bodily entrainment—the universal human capacity to synchronize movement to a beat—which researchers suggest is rooted in the evolution of bipedalism in Africa.
• The "Mobile Pelvis": A key expressive difference between African-derived and European-derived cultures is the use of the body. For example, versions of children’s songs performed by Black children traditionally include physical gestures like "letting the backbone slip," reflecting the mobile pelvis characteristic of African dance, which was historically rare in Western dance.
• Communication Through Percussion: The use of rhythm as a communicative tool is evidenced by West African talking drums, which mimic the linguistic tones and rhythms of local languages to convey messages.

2. Melodic Innovation and "Bent Notes"

The African diaspora introduced a "counter-paradigm" to the Western Pythagorean system of discrete, well-tuned scales.

• Bent Notes and the Blues: The blues validated the use of "bent notes"—sounds that fall between the keys of a piano. Early blues guitarists achieved this by using knives or broken glass to slide across strings, a technique that allowed them to rediscover unconstrained sound and challenge established hierarchies of aural control.
• Blue Notes: This "untuning" of the universe became a hallmark of jazz and R&B, where musicians prioritize the "grain" and personality of the voice over formal European vocal techniques.

3. Oral Traditions and the Role of the Griot

Modern American genres like rap and hip-hop are direct descendants of ancient African oral traditions.

• The Imbongi and Griots: Quincy Jones notes that rap originated from the imbongi, griots, and oral historians of Africa. These storytellers preserved cultural lore through spoken word and rhythm, a practice that persists in the blues.
• Signifyin’ and Quotation: The practice of "musical signifi-g," or using musical quotations as a form of play and cultural commentary, is a common technique in jazz that stems from these oral traditions.

4. Cultural Evolution and the Great Migration

The transition of these African roots from rural to urban settings catalyzed the birth of modern American pop.

• Electric Blues and the City: During the Great Migration, millions of Black Americans moved to the industrial North, bringing the blues with them. In cities like Chicago, musicians like Muddy Waters adopted electric guitars and amplifiers to match the "loud and noisy" city environment, transforming rural spirituals into "spirituals of the city".
• Improvisation: Unlike the Western classical tradition, which focuses on strict notation and pre-composed works, African-rooted music emphasizes improvisation as a core act of creation.
• Techno and "Post-Soul": Even electronic genres like techno and house are rooted in this lineage. Innovators like Juan Atkins describe techno as "post-soul," a mechanized evolution of Black music that uses synthesizers to create a "crystalline" beauty in response to grimy industrial environments.

5. Martial Arts and Dance

The roots of American physical expression also have African origins. For instance, breakdancing evolved from Capoeira, a martial art disguised as dance that was developed thousands of years ago by enslaved Africans from Angola and Brazil.