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Juneteenth 1865-2024: A Legacy of Song

Many would argue the sounds of Africa influence every genre of music. This is the evolution of America's sound and its influence on culture.

Lea Wilson, KHOU 11 Staff

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Published: 10:08 AM CDT June 7, 2024
Updated: 6:12 AM CDT June 19, 2024

Music is the tie that binds and the language that has flowed through and across cultures since the beginning of time.

Many would argue the rhythm, rhyme and the magic of a steady drum beat began in Africa. They’d also say the sounds of Africa influence every genre of music from folk and country to house, funk and rock. The heavy bass lines of hip-hop and the slashing of a heavy metal guitar are all influenced by African culture.

To truly understand the breadth of the impact of Africa on American music, we have to take it back to the Mother Land.

During the transatlantic slave trade, 55% of enslaved people were shipped to Brazil, 35% to the Caribbean Islands, and only 6% to the United States, according to historian Sam Collins. Brazilian sugar plantations drove the demand for slave labor much earlier than in the United States. The new nation would soon catch up naturally, as enslaved people started having babies in American colonies.

Tragically, children could be and often were sold away to other plantations and away from their mothers.

Even in slavery, music had the power to empower, celebrate and soothe. Lullabies cascaded from a mother’s lips to her children, and little ones played song games and made up songs they performed. There were even celebrations of cotton, cane and sugar, ahead of, and during harvest – a harvest that was brutal for enslaved people forced to work in the cruelest of conditions. Still, they worked and sang together in a rhythmic, but painful way that also served as a metronome for engineering and efficiency.

You would also hear singing fill the air in the slave quarters.

“Well, the only time they were in the quarters was at night because they were working from sun to sun,” said author and composer Naomi Mitchell Carrier. “And that was the time when there was an opportunity to express intimacy. And I'm sure there were love calls and expressions and, I mean, you know, music. Everybody has a voice. You can hum, you can whistle, you can sing, you can yell.”

There weren’t many instruments on the plantation. So, enslaved Africans would recreate the instruments they had while in their homeland.  Because they didn’t have access to their instruments, many were recreated from memory.

"By the 1820s, it was very hard to find drums on farms and plantations across the U.S. South because they were used for rebellion," said University of Arizona Professor Tyina Steptoe, Ph.D.

Using only their voices to make music, enslaved people developed a song style and sound that would become the hallmark of Black music.

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