Curated category
African-American culture
- House musicHouse music was born in the dark of Chicago's underground club scene, somewhere between a disco record and a drum machine.
- Signifyin'Signifyin' is a practice rooted in African-American culture that turns language itself into a kind of performance. Imagine insulting someone as a way of…
- African AmericansAfrican Americans are the third-largest racial and ethnic group in the United States, numbering nearly 43 million people as of July 2024.
- Hip-hop danceHip-hop dance was born on the streets of New York and California in the 1970s, and it has never fully left them. In 1973, DJ Kool Herc threw parties in the…
- Gangsta rapGangsta rap began its life under a different name: reality rap. That original label tells you something honest about what the genre's founders believed they…
- Rock musicIn 1951, a Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey named Alan Freed began spinning rhythm and blues records for a multi-racial audience, and he is credited with first…
- JuneteenthOn the 19th of June 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived on the island of Galveston to take command of more than 2,000 federal troops.
- Electronic dance musicElectronic dance music, known the world over simply as EDM, began in the nightclubs and warehouses of the late twentieth century and grew into a global…
- Rock and rollRock and roll arrived in the United States not as a sudden invention but as a slow-burning collision of sounds that had been building for decades.
- RappingRapping begins with a simple act: a voice, a beat, and the choice to speak in time. Long before studio albums or streaming charts, a man named Grandmaster…
- Spoken wordSpoken word is an oral poetic performance art rooted in the aesthetics of the human voice. Long before printing presses existed, poets were performing.