Black Americans did. Black Native Americans, Native Black Americans, Indians, Indigenous Black American folk…however you identify as being part of our ethnic group with lineage roots to America, WE did!
I decided to try something. I had a hours long back and forth with Google AI (I know, I know it’s not good for the environment and I won’t utilize it again. Besides, it’s too programmed with half information as it is) a couple days ago with the prompt of:
Why is the general consensus that rap comes from Africa when no music genre in Africa remotely sounds like rap?
Now, I am not claiming to be anybody’s music expert or historian but that does not mean what the little I do know through research cannot be questioned and challenged.
Its initial response was like so (excuse my typos and less than correct spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, unstructured sentence structure and disorganization—I was typing with quick responses and some passionate keyboard warrior’g so it is messy and jumps all over the place):
As any trigger response goes from most people, along with any prompt online, AI is programmed to recite what mainstream academia inputs and its idea of rap’s origins is the inaccurate, too often cited, repeated narrative tales of DJ Kool Herc, Jamaican toasting and the generalized oral West African griot fable.
AI not once mentioned Cab Calloway, Pigmeat Markham, The Jubilaires, DJ Doug “Jocko” Henderson, Grandmaster Flowers, Disco King Mario, Pete “DJ” Jones, none of these early disc jockeys: William T. “Hoss” Allen, Eddie Castleberry, "Sir Johnny O." Compton, Rufus Thomas, Moses Lindberg "Lucky" Cordell, Larry Dean Faulkner, Georgie Woods, MC Gary Byrd, Jack Gibson, “Joltin' Joe" Howard, Maurice "Hot Rod" Hulbert, Jr., Al Jefferson, Tom Joyner, Eddie O'Jay, Norman W. Spaulding, Richard Stams, DJ Martha Jean "The Queen" Steinberg, Roy Wood, Sr., Frankie Crocker, Henry "Hank" Spann, Vernon Winslow “Dr. Daddy-O aren’t either. [to note: this piece even references the African griot folklore too. It shows how pervasive and prominent this “reach” to Africa has inundated the history of our music.]]
I asked AI why weren’t artists like Cab Calloway also referenced for MCing? Again, AI sorta did the whole “you’re right” and spoke about his importance along with the others I mentioned. But had I not mentioned Cab, AI would’ve never included him.
Cab Calloway’s “Hepster’s Dictionary”
Even with AI’s mention of playing the dozens, I had asked in a different tab but didn’t record — I brought up Bessie Smith and if she’d be considered to be playing the dozens lyrically? She was the first person that came to mind and I didn’t have all this information researched until after.
I mean, Moms Mabley is completely erased from the act of playing the dozens. Women weren’t even included in any back and forth with AI about any parts of this topic. No Ma Rainey either.
Lester “The Prez” Young was not named at all. The man who is responsible for cool jargon that we use today. I had a short post about him last year. But again, Lester is absent from the algorithm developed by Google.
AI doesn’t mention the indigenous Black tribes who chanted and their drum instrumentation in ceremonies. It said that polyrhythm is tied to Africa. I then asked was that rhythm only played by Africans? Weren’t Indigenous tribes using drumming and that rhythm too? Were early drums solely found in Africa? It said no and drumming was done by Indigenous people in America for centuries but not in polyrhythmic pattern. I can’t recall what the response was to when I questioned what year was there evidence to document that Africans drummed in polyrhythm in comparison to the Black indigenous Indians also drumming to determine if one predates the other and if similar pattern was used.
AI would begin to correct itself with referencing the Black Americans who created the culture and it admitted that the erasure of Black Americans is revisionist history. So, it felt like it was getting the necessary context to have a more accurate response.
So, I came back about thirty minutes later, asked the exact question and it reverted right back to West Africa and Dj Herc. The AI pretty much regurgitated the same thing as earlier. I then responded with just about every famous Jamaican artists, from Bob Marley to Dj Herc to Count Matchuki that have all said they were heavily influenced by Black Americans and our culture. There are interviews with Marley saying: My greatest influence at the time was the Drifters – ‘Magic Moment,’ ‘Please Stay,’ those things.”; DJ Herc saying: “Jamaican toasting?” said Herc. “Naw, naw. No connection there. I couldn’t play reggae in the Bronx. People wouldn’t accept it. The inspiration for rap is James Brown and the album Hustler’s Convention.” (1984). “How much of an inspiration was Jamaica to the way you played and the way you made the music? An inspiration to me – my father knew good music. He loved music and he taught me what was good music. [In his dad’s Jamaican accent] “That’s a good bounce.” He didn’t play an instrument? He was a Nat King Cole man, Johnny Ace, all the classical old R&B blues singers. Louis Armstrong, all those people. Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald. That’s his type of music, and I knew what good music was. He trained my ears to it.” (1998); Like the jive of Cab Calloway, toasting used language for its rhythm, percussion, and style. It was improvised, freestyled, and deepened the music’s hold on the audience. Matchuki told Beat magazine how he created his sound after hearing an American DJ in 1949: “That deliverance! This guy sound like a machine! A tongue-twister! […] And I say, I think I can do better. I’d like to play some recordings and just jive talk like this guy.”
“Calloway spoke jive — “The jim, jam, jump on the jumpin’ jive makes you dig your jive on the mellow side.” He recorded jive in his songs, and in his own dictionary — Cab Calloway’s Hepster Dictionary: Language of Jive. Calloway established jive as a language and culture. In the 1950s, jive furthered its reach through the embrace of Black radio disc jockeys. DJs like Texas’ Dr. Hepcat, aka Albert Lavada Durst, also published a jive dictionary which he used during his broadcasts. Back in New York, Tommy Smalls was Dr Jive, while Douglas ‘Jocko’ Henderson peppered his Rocket Ship show with phrases like “I’m back on the scene with the record machine.”These American DJs spread jive not only over America but across the ocean. In 1950s Jamaica, where the recording industry had yet to establish itself, music was mainly consumed as a radio thing – catching transmissions from major cities far away. Bob Marley’s daughter Cedella told me that “when the stars and the moon and the wind were aligned just right, my dad could pick up far off American jukebox hits on his transistor radio. Young Jamaicans absolutely loved the hits and they couldn’t get enough of the jive-talking DJs: they idolized them for their power to not just introduce the music but to maintain the energy of the music. But most of all, they emulated the suave styling the DJs used to seduce and entertain the listener.”
Nothing is said about Blues singer, Rosco Gordon. The man who “… created a style of piano playing known as “The Rosco Rhythm” and made a number of his early recordings for Sam Phillips at Sun Records. This rhythm places the accent on the off beats, and is widely cited as the foundation of Jamaican ska and reggae music.”
I questioned why didn’t the response have any of the Black Americans I mentioned or reference the interviews of the very Jamaicans it claims to be the creators of rap and AI said: as an ai I dont "learn" or reprogram my core database in real-time based on a single conversation. My underlying knowledge is fixed until my developers (Google) perform a broad update or “retraining” on massive amounts of data.
I asked it also about breakdancing — AI never referenced The Nicholas Brothers, Conrad “Little Buck” Buckner, The Berry Brothers, The Four Step Brothers, Earl “Snakehips” Tucker, the male duo dancers in the 1940s soundie Caravan, Al Minns, Leon James, Frank Manning, Bill Bailey, John Bubbles who all were doing several seminal dance moves that later became breakdancing. They were all moving and performing dance moves that were precursors of what later became breakdancing. But AI gave the generic response of, yet again, West Africa and these unsubstantiated claims that Latino youth and Puerto Ricans are responsible for the dance style.
For real it’s sickening how overtime, everyone got on board with erasing and removing us from our own cultural creations and innovations. DJ Herc never making it known that he is indeed NOT the father of Rap nor Hip Hop is so dishonorable. It’s like an actual thief that keeps robbing everybody of the truth they deserve.
AI once again credited all other ethnic groups instead of the actual originators…US. I asked it: How is Africa the origins of rap (I asked about RnB too) and hip hop when none of us have gone to Africa to create our music genres or go there to get influenced for dance styles? But we can find many cases in which Africans have come to America to be inspired for their artistry (Sandra Izsadore helped Fela Kuti with AfroBeats when he came to the US) . Why isn’t there any video footage predating the 70s of Latinos and Jamaicans breakdancing and rapping? What we can find is endless footage of us dancing in moves that were precursors to breakdancing and singing and rhyming and beatboxing in styles that were precursors of rapping from the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. Don’t remember what it said either.
We have endless amounts of proof of what our ancestors created. Decades ago. Centuries ago. In music recordings, in live performances. Their creations are evident and are cemented in the cultural archives. And we, as their descendants, continued to build and be inspired from their creations. We have receipts for days!
I’ve never seen an ethnic group get so invasively discredited and disassociated and dismembered from their cultural innovations like our people do!
“As to how Zydeco got its name, there’s plenty to debate so take your pick.
One theory ties Zydeco to its African heritage, where “zai’co laga laga” meant to dance. Another out-there belief points to the Atakapa tribes of the early 1700s. Their term for dancing was pronounced “shy ish-ol,” but misinterpreted by European explorers as “zy-e-kol.” The most accepted theory (and, the most palatable since we found out Atakapa means “man eaters”) comes from the regional French pronunciation of “les haricots sont pas sales” as “zy-dee-co sohn.” While its literal translation is “the snap beans aren’t salty,” this lament of poverty became an apt description of the hardships and indignities they endured.”
I also saw it spelled as "shi ishol". And it is said to be a phrase associated with the linguistic origin of the word Zydeco (the genre of Louisiana Creole music). "It is believed to be a phrase from the Atakapa Indians of Louisiana. Spanish settlers in the 1690s (or 1528 in some accounts) reportedly heard or translated the phrase as zy ikol. When the French succeeded the Spanish in Louisiana, they altered zy ikol to zy'dkol."
Some kinda way, our things can NEVER be fully connected to us. Some kinda way, every ethnic group and all countries around the globe have some co-creation, co-opted existence to our culture. It feels parasitic in nature to consistently attach everybody to what’s uniquely and specifically ours.
Everything we do and uniquely create gets reassigned and diluted to people who had nothing to do with the creation and THIS is how algorithms and books and documentaries and professors spread this misinformation and that misinformation/disinformation becomes “fact”. Everyone says rap is created by everyone who ain’t Black American and the dissemination reaches and erroneously teaches. Yall realize just how long this propaganda has been “fact”?
Because now, white people are claiming they created jazz and Africans are claiming they created RnB because the banjo is from Africa (which some are saying is the modern-day guitar. but we can thank Robert Fleming, Jr. for that but he hardly gets mentioned). For the longest, Jazz was “jungle music” and the white people wanted nothing to do with it. But today, it’s their creation.
My question is -- how does all this music have origins to Africa and Jamaica and everywhere else when nothing past or present sounds like it? None of the music of the past or now reflects or mirrors our music sonically. How can there be links only through instruments? If that's the basis, then again, everyone can claim rap's origins.
AI later stated that there’s an “exotic” narrative that frames hip hop as “imported” culture from Jamaica often make it sound more "revolutionary". Maybe that’s what it is. Or it’s more sinister than I’m assuming it to be because the collective, concerted effort overtime that everyone just got on board with is not some random happenstance. There’s no way everybody got on one accord and simply started to repeat all this disinformation.
Jamaicans did not create rap and hip hop. White people did not create Jazz, Rock n Roll and Country. Africans did not create RnB. And the push to apply this foreign, mythicism, immigrant story to rap is so despicable.
Rap and Hip Hop (breakdancing), Jazz, RnB, Country and Rock n Roll were all created by Black Americans. We did. There’s a continuity that is clearly evident.
The genius and genesis of Foundational Black Americans in our country is not through slavery only. Nor is our genius and genesis and innovations and creations co-creations tied to other ethnic groups. It is exclusive to us. It is autochthon.
We have ‘a long-standing Black American tradition of engineering and musical mastery’ that is unmatched and connected to us. To the many known and hidden figures that are respected artists and dancers and singers and maestros, the teachers…the founders of the culture they crafted and created. It’s their creation!
THEY are the fathers and mothers, godmothers and godfathers and architects of the genre and culture. THEY built the house.
Yesterday at Brooklyn Bridge Had an awesome day with @zemotiontheartist1 and @bbddancers at the Brooklyn Bridge. Thank you so much for that really unique NYC-Experience 🥰💯👌🏻 #nyc #breakdance #streetart #newyorkcity #newyork #breaking #nycphotographer #hiphop #street #dance #streetarteverywhere #bboy #nycprimeshot #bboying #breakdancer #leica #leicaq @leica_camera_deutschland @leica_store_nuernberg (hier: Brooklyn Bridge) https://www.instagram.com/p/CokTzIYOAnT/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Tonight it goes down at @spokesmancoffee with @djberlin plus a Bboy/BGirl competition & Emcee Freestyle Contest both with cash prizes & gift cards to the winners!!! Special guest hosts from @chhk512 will be in the building to judge the emcee competition! The fun starts at 6pm! Bboy contest at 7 hosted by @bboyblitz_ emcee contest starts at 8 hosted by @bigmicpereida !!! It’s a free event! Come show out! #community #unity #opportunity #bboy #bgirl #contest #bboyworld #bboying #emcee #battle #freestyle #rapbattle #cashprize #chhkrecords (at Spokesman) https://www.instagram.com/p/CmPM2B_JLUz/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
