Peter Clark
Professor James Smethurst
AFROAM 151
December 5, 2012
The History Of Rock and Roll: Copyright Not Included
The history of black America is one filled with exploitation and abuse. Time and time again we see the “cultural rape” of the black community. Whether it be style, lingo, or music white culture has been “borrowing” from black culture since the early history of the United States. It is so obvious it almost passes unnoticed. For example the handshake has largely been replaced in youth culture by a dap or a fist pound, both remnant of black culture in the 60’s. Even hello has been replaced with “yo” an interjection made popular in the black vernacular. One cultural phenomena that has been largely covered up as African-American in origin. The history of rock and roll is long and intricate drawing its roots from early American R&B, among other places. While most of the true innovators of rock music have been widely overlooked, white musicians have been profiting greatly off of the innovations made in music by black recording artists, specifically in the arena of rock and roll.
It is widely accepted that rock music has its roots in the american blues. The history of the blues dates all the way back to slave plantations. This genre comes specifically from African-American folk music. Julio Finn the author of The Bluesman stated that:
[White blues performers] can never be bluespeople...because the blues is not something they live but something they do- which makes all the difference in the world. What distinguishes the bluesperson from the bluesperformer is the cultural-racial make-up, which can only be inherited by a descendent of an ex-American slave. (qtd in Adelt 1)
Whether this is true or not is a matter of opinion. What is intriguing about this statement though is the fact that virtually all blues music was originally composed