Black Liberation Music

During the transatlantic slave trade, the captured Africans resisted their conditions en route to new lives as enslaved with utterings, melodic chants, and drumming that make up the roots of Black music. When drums were banned during the era of slavery in the Americas, people of African descent worldwide pivoted and reinvented the instrument–giving birth to traditions such as the steel pan music of Trinidad and Tobago. Work songs were also developed, and when African American slavery worsened in what is now the United States, Negro spirituals provided a way of escape (metaphorically and literally with its coded messages plotting escape). This musical tradition developed into blues, jazz, rock 'n roll, and continues up to today with the controversial mumble rap and trap music. This course offers a deep exploration of the role of music and its contribution to black liberation movements in the U.S. and worldwide.