The Oral Tradition
The oral tradition maintains a culture's history, art, and this other cultural practice through passing information from one generation to another.
What is religion?
Religious songs sung by African Americans since the earliest days of slavery.
What are spirituals?
Although it flourished throughout the South, jazz first takes off in this place nicknamed the Crescent City.
What is New Orleans?
Prior to the advent of hip-hop, Black musicians were performing primarily this type of music.
What is disco?
"Beale Street Blues"
What is the blues?
The oral tradition passes down the essential ideas that make up a culture through stories, poems, and this other traditionally oral form.
What are songs?
The blues often follows this pattern for its three-line stanzas.
What is A-A-B?
By the mid-1960s, this R&B label included artists like Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations, the Supremes, and the Jackson Five among its roster of talent.
What is Motown?
Hip-hop began in a rec room in a housing project in this borough of New York City.
What is the Bronx?
What is spiritual?
An exchange or dialogue between the storyteller and the members of the audience.
What is call-and-response?
Ballads and work songs are examples of this type of song, a direct opposite of the spiritual.
What are secular songs?
What is gospel?
DJ Herc introduced this song to hip-hop. Referred to as the national anthem of hip-hop, it was released by the Shadows and later covered by the Incredible Bongo Band.
What is "Apache"?
"(What Did I Do to Be) So Black and Blue?"
What is jazz?
The oral tradition continues to impact African-American literature in part because it was prohibited to teach enslaved people this basic skill.
What is literacy?
Ballads like "Frankie and Johnny" and "Stackolee" tell stories not of the nobility but of these kind of people.
What are everyday people?
Jazz is said to mimic this aspect of African-American communication.
What is talking?
She produced the first hip-hop album in 1979.
Who is Sylvia Robinson?
"The Signifying Monkey"
What is ballad?
This person's function in their tribe would be “quite various, including poet, genealogist, historian, spokesperson, teacher, musician, singer, and entertainer” according to the Norton Anthology of African-American Literature.
Who is the griot?
Spirituals often retell stories of these prophets who led their people out of captivity.
Who are Old Testament prophets?
A symbol of escape and freedom, this modern invention significantly influenced early jazz as seen in songs like "Daybreak Express" and "9:20 Special."
What is the locomotive?
This technique, which uses two copies of the same record, allows the MC to extend the dance break as long as they wish.
What is backspinning?
"Planet Rock"
What is hip-hop?