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Why We Should Look to Black Artists for the Future of Music
We’ve seen Beyoncé, Frank Ocean, and Chance the Rapper introduce new methods of music distribution—but they’re following a long line of black artists who have revolutionized the music industry
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American music is black music — and vice versa. We can’t begin to comprehend the complexity of the American musical tradition, at least within the past 125 years, without breaking down the contributions of black musicians. Music is born through a ripple effect, a call-and-response method of creation. For black artists, this means experimenting with the conventions of familiar genres to arrive at something newer, fresher, and more sonically progressive. Whether it was guitarists making rock and roll by restructuring blues rhythms to entice more dancing or Frankie Knuckles creating house music by speeding up disco beats to keep the party going at the Warehouse, black musicians have not been afraid to push the creative limits.
Black musicians today continue to experiment. New subgenres of music, such as drill, footwork, and trap, have made gains in the hip-hop and…
