Black History

1980s-Present

If the Civil Rights struggle had shown us anything, it's that pride and power start from within. But outside our windows, as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five reminded us, there's always the ghetto. In 7 minutes and 13 seconds, "The Message" torched the Bronx, ground zero for hip-hop and the next quarter-century of pop culture. But it took Run-DMC, three guys from Hollis, Queens, to deliver the music to the mainstream — and they did it with "Proud to Be Black," a throwback to James Brown in his black-power prime. Even Prince, for all his freaky-deaky sexuality, took a breather from his 1999-calibre partying to get serious with "Sign O' the Times." But the history didn't stop there: Mary J. Blige's "Take Me As I Am" did what she does best — raise a voice for her all-too-often silenced sisters. And when it comes to breaking silence, nothing speaks quite like money: just ask Jay-Z, who came from Bed-Stuy's hard knock life to launch a half-billion-dollar empire with street smarts, guts . . . and the powerhouse example of all those who walked the walk before him.

But don't stop here. If you really want to know the whole story, you'll want to dig deep . . . to The Civil Rights Struggle, as black musicians refine jazz, electrify blues, and invent rock 'n' roll.

1940s-70s

Between WWII and Vietnam, persecution and prejudice transformed into pride . . . and power, as black music, like black culture itself, came into its own. With "Mannish Boy," Muddy Waters dragged the blues up the Delta to the big city, plugging it in and lighting it up. Combining their powers, Miles Davis and John Coltrane threw off the shackles of Dixieland, swing, and everything that had gone before, reinventing the language of jazz and putting the "cool" in the "cool school." And if black power had been couched in whisper and metaphor, along came James Brown, shouting the language of the clenched fist — "Say It Loud, I'm Black And I'm Proud." Any doubters needed only listen to Aretha demand respect, or hear Motown become "the music of young America." But there were other forces of change: Harry Belafonte's "Oh, Freedom" unmasked a fierce spirit as vital to the movement as Sam Cooke's; Jimi Hendrix transcended the color barrier entirely when his "Star Spangled Banner" unified black and white under the red, white, and blue; and Marvin Gaye asked the question on everyone's lips, "What's Going On" — because while the struggle was well under way, it still had a long journey ahead.

But none of this would've happened without a rock-solid base to build from, and in The Middle Passage Through The Depression, we'll hear the sound of black history being written — not just in ink, but in tears and sweat . . . and, sometimes, blood.

1600s-1930s

Taken in chains to a strange new land, African-Americans sowed the seeds of their ultimate triumph in music's soil, and watered them with sweat, tears, and blood. Everything we know about American music starts here, right at the top with "Hammer, Ring," the birth of the work song — slaves singing to each other through unbearable labor, under an unforgiving Southern sun. And when field labor crushed the soul, it took nothing short of the granddaddy of all gospel songs, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," to raise it back on high. But black music wasn't all God's handiwork; there was always the devil, who lived at the bottom of every whiskey bottle. While bluesman Robert Johnson was one short step ahead of the hellhounds on his trail, Louis Armstrong was firing up a joyous noise called jazz, America's first home-cooked music. But there's more, lots more — and from the make-your-skin-crawl terror of "Strange Fruit" to the white-tie-and-tails elegance of Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo," we're bringing it all straight to your ears.

Slavery, struggle, and success: If you could distill four centuries of black history into song, this is what it would sound like.