African American Music Appreciation Month

The month of June provides a time to appreciate and celebrate African American musicians, composers, singers, and songwriters. This observation began on June 7, 1979, when President Jimmy Carter decreed June to be Black Music Month.

The month of June provides a time to appreciate and celebrate African American musicians, composers, singers, and songwriters. This observation began on June 7, 1979, when President Jimmy Carter decreed June to be Black Music Month.

Langston Hughes | Poetry All-Stars
Langston Hughes | Poetry All-Stars
Episode 1

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Langston Hughes 1902-1967 Langston's father once discouraged him from writing poetry. He believed discrimination would keep the young Langston from finding success as a poet. But Langston continued to...
Scott Joplin | Artopia
Scott Joplin | Artopia

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Scott Joplin was born near Linden, Texas and raised in Texarkana, Texas, the son of a railroad laborer who had been a slave. Joplin showed an early and extraordinary aptitude for music, which was...
Hugh Masekela | Artopia
Hugh Masekela | Artopia

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Hugh Masekela was born in Witbank, South Africa on April 4, 1939. He began singing and playing piano as a child and as a teenager, was encouraged to play the trumpet by the British anti-apartheid...
Mary Lou Williams | Artopia
Mary Lou Williams | Artopia

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Mary Lou Williams was born in Atlanta, Georgia on May 10, 1910 and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A prodigy, she taught herself to play the piano at the age of four. Williams could hear a piece...
Celia Cruz | Artopia
Celia Cruz | Artopia

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Celia Cruz was born and raised in the working class Santos Suarez neighborhood of Havana, Cuba on October 21, 1924. Brought up in a musical family, she began singing in local contests and later...
Louis Armstrong | Artopia
Louis Armstrong | Artopia

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Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901 and raised in the Storyville district of New Orleans, Louisiana. As a child he was a street singer and learned to play the coronet while in reform school...
Rock and Roll | Gullah Music
Episode 9

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Blues and country music contributed to a style called rhythm and blues. This was an early form of what we now call rock and roll. It appealed to a younger audience that liked to dance to the sounds of...
Work Song | Gullah Music
Episode 3

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Enslaved Africans sang songs as they worked to help keep the pace of the task they were doing. A leader called out a verse or yell and others responded. This is the call-and-response singing tradition...
Hip Hop/Rap | Gullah Music
Episode 12

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African call-and-response patterns and improvisation survived the Middle Passage and became two of the basic elements of one of today’s most popular forms of music. In the 1970s, rap music began in...
Middle Passage | Gullah Music
Episode 2

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European slave traders brought Africans to the New World on ships as early as the 1400s. These voyages across the Atlantic Ocean are called the Middle Passage. It was a terrible experience for the...