Category: Wynton Marsalis

  • Rap ≠ Hip Hop

    Trigger/content warning: racist language in sources, including the n-word. Wynton Marsalis has said of hardcore rap: I call it “ghetto minstrelsy” . . . Old school minstrels [i.e. whites in blackface] used to say they were “real darkies from the real plantation.” Hip-hop substitutes the plantation for the streets. Now you have to say that…

  • Origins of Jazz

    Content/Trigger warning: Racist imagery and lyrics. Among the origins of jazz are several overlapping musical genres that were popular at the end of the nineteenth century. Black musical theater, which, around the turn of the twentieth century, crossed color lines to become popular with white as well as black audiences. Marti Newland singing “Swing Along,”…