Pop Into Culture: OK ladies, now, let’s get in formation

By Antonio Machado

Multimedia Editor

As division in the political landscape of America reaches new, modern heights, we look to art to find ways to connect with each other and spread love to those around us.

Music shapes the way we view and interact with the world. It is everywhere - in dining halls, stores, in our earbuds, in that silly TikTok video as faint background music, or sneaking into our heads as we desperately try to focus on an assignment. Music is everywhere.

Music is an art form deeply rooted in American culture and history, and it plays a fundamental role in our communities and daily lives. 

The reason for that is simple - music is inextricably linked to Black history.

As we immerse ourselves in Black History Month, especially in a time as critical as this where any and every marginalized community is under duress, we must acknowledge and highlight the impact Black people have had on music and pop culture as we know them today.

The history of American music is an oxymoron. Black musicians played jazz in clubs that were only accessible to white people. Black R&B singers performed at sold-out venues throughout the Jim Crow South.

The banjo serves as the foundation for folk and country music, but those bricks were placed by the Black slaves who brought their instrument from Africa and were forced to teach its music to white people.

Call-and-response, a fundamental music technique and architectural blueprint of pop music, was woven in the fields through work songs, and it eventually became the first step to creating blues music.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a gospel and blues singer, introduced the distorted guitar and growled the first notes of rock ’n roll years before Elvis even looked at a stage. The genre as a whole was named after “My Baby Rocks Me with One Steady Roll,” a blues song by Trixie Smith - a Black woman.

Painted on the sheet music we hear every day are hundreds of years of Black history etching the staff. The convention of modern music was directed by Black people as they conducted symphonies of their pain - and though the oppressors heard and learned each and every note, they never listened.

Black influence and resistance never ended, though. In fact, it only fueled the fire to make the stars burn even brighter.

What we in the modern day define as a “Pop Star” was written by Black musicians who introduced spectacle into the world of music. Stardom today was built on the necessity of needing to be twice as good to get half as far. 

Prince was a musical prodigy who blurred the lines of genre and gender - challenging gender norms and blurring the constraints of labels on music, becoming a pioneer of the “Minneapolis sound.” He brought fashion and theatricality to the forefront of music, becoming living performance art through his persona.

The Supremes’ Diana Ross essentially defined what a Pop Diva should be with her larger-than-life, glamorous stage presence. She pioneered the concept that a leading pop girl could be both a vocal powerhouse and a luxury brand.

Britney Spears would never exist without the influence of Janet Jackson, who redefined pop by using industrialized R&B to deliver poignant social commentary in her music, and capitalized on making captivating visuals through her dancing.

The “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson, created levels of performance mastery and stage command hitherto undreamt of. He was a student and proud celebrator of each and every Black artist who came before him and is now studied by each and every aspiring artist since his passing. 

His utilization of his voice as an actual instrument within his music is part of the pop formula used by every artist today, and he essentially invented the concept of what a music video should look like.

And now, Beyoncé. 

Another one in a long, long list of impeccable musicians who have completely restructured the way music is produced and stages are conducted. If Black music is a symphony of resistance through pain, Beyoncé has become its most formidable conductor, using her sound to shift the culture into acceptance of Black history.

As we listen to the cries of suffering happening throughout our country, it is imperative to remember we all speak the same language - music - and clearly, we’ve all learned from the same teachers, all of whom honed their voices in the fires of resistance, and we can resist too, with the fire of our voices.