Blues music was popular among former slaves living in Mississippi. Once the Great Migration happened, full of African American workers, blues music spread across not only the south, but the rest of the United States. The blues had a theme in the music that was able to express the African American struggle. Many enslaved African Americans communicated through song. Through these pieces, you can understand how African Americans lived and felt in America.
The commercialization and popularization of blues music led to the lossage of richness and originality in the genre. A lot of European bands and artists came to love blues, and recreated and covered the original work of African Americans. The problem is that they didn’t acknowledge the fact that the music originated from African Americans. The music became a way for these people to get money, similar to the ragtime genre. This also perpetuated racial stratification, completely disregarding the work done by African Americans primarily because they were African American. I feel like this happens a lot in musical genres and ignores the impact blues had on the music industry. [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVDCuQY6wOc[/embedyt]
