Is the music industry killing musical culture- or allowing it to flourish as never before?

Is the music industry killing musical culture- or allowing it to flourish as never before?

Industry in which African Americans have excelled as artists but in which whites still dominate top executive positions and control the marketing and sales of black creative efforts.

For decades, African American musical artists have created and sustained a number of musical genres. Blues, jazz, funk, gospel, hip-hop, rock and roll, and rhythm and blues are the best known, but blacks perform other types of music as well, from classical to country.

Black musicians have, in many ways, driven the modern music industry. Yet of the ten largest black businesses in the United States, none is a record company. Moreover, the music industry has also pursued marketing strategies that have worked to disadvantage African American performers while benefiting white artists, whom industry executives have considered more acceptable to American audiences.

APPROPRIATION OF BLACK MUSIC

Throughout its long history, the modern music industry has benefited from the popularity and talent of African American performers and musical innovations. For example, the industry has often borrowed black folk music to bring success to white groups. An early example was the Christy Minstrels, a white musical comedy troupe from the late 1800s and early 1900s who performed in blackface. Their act was a parody of black culture as popularized by the media of the day. At other times, the industry reshaped the music of classically trained black composers, such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk, to fit the mold of white music.

The black pioneers of blues, jazz, ragtime, and swing received relatively little financial reward for their accomplishments compared with their white counterparts. Nor were they as widely known as they should have been. As late as the 1930s, few people outside of segregated black neighborhoods, other than those with access to “race records,” had even heard of black artists such as Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday. Nor did most radio stations play black music. Part of the reluctance of the radio stations to play black music or works performed by black performers can be traced to the lyrics. Blues lyrics, for example, often complained of injustices perpetrated against blacks, something whites did not want on the airwaves.

In the 1950s, the teenagers of the baby-boom generation developed into a lucrative group of consumers with a taste for rock and roll. Unfortunately, the music industry at first did not sufficiently promote black artists such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Fats Domino. Instead, they put their financial and marketing resources into white artists, such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley, and Carl Perkins, who consequently became wealthy and famous. Moreover, the industry took songs written and performed by blacks and directed unknown whites to take them to the top of the music charts. During rock and roll's first decade, major record labels such as RCA, Capitol, and Atlantic simply stole the music of African Americans and had whites sing ...