What would American music look like without African-American slaves?

Very interesting question. American music would be much the poorer. No gospel, no ragtime, no jazz, no R & B, no rock & roll, no rap, no hip hop. This is making me very sad. That leaves us with country western, which does have Black influences, European style classic music, and ballads. Latin music would come in during the 20th Century. Without 'Black music American global cultural dominance would be much weaker. Gospel has great spiritual power, and helped make America one of the most devotional countries in the world.

Without slaves the North South divide is far less pronounced. There's only a small tobacco, and then cotton plantation system. The South develops along much more democratic lines. Income distribution is much more even, with the South having a more balanced economy. In the period 1820-1860 the United States is missing it's biggest export commodity, so has a less favorable balance of trade. The country has no slavery fights, no Ohio boundary, Missouri compromise, 1850 compromise, debate over Texas admission, no bleeding Kansas, and no Civil War, no reconstruction, no KKK, no Color Bars, no Civil Rights acts, no Red Lining, no bussing, no integration debates.

The United States is more homogeneous, but has less human capital. I don't mean just as slaves, who aren't very productive, I mean the input, and output of free African American labor, both physical, and creative genius. We would've lost a lot of battlefield bravery, American athletic achievements, and broader contributions in the wider entertainment industry. I think America would be missing a big chunk of it's national character, and economic power. For better or worse our trials over race have made us a stronger, if more divided nation. In a perverse way our failures to live up to our founding principles forces us to confront those failing, and drives us to do better. People are made better by confronting their problems, and faults. Forgive a religious reference, but sinners need repentance.
 
Very interesting question. American music would be much the poorer. No gospel, no ragtime, no jazz, no R & B, no rock & roll, no rap, no hip hop. This is making me very sad. That leaves us with country western, which does have Black influences, European style classic music, and ballads. Latin music would come in during the 20th Century. Without 'Black music American global cultural dominance would be much weaker. Gospel has great spiritual power, and helped make America one of the most devotional countries in the world.
No OTL American music, but the American influence will follow audio technology from the twenties into the sixties. Alternative inputs will change music in general. You can't compare AH entirely to OTL. What sounds "terrible" to us is the norm of ATL. Don't forget the conservative reaction to American rock-and-roll in the late fifties.
 
Maybe there would be more Latin American/Caribbean influence? (Although including the Caribbean is kind of cheating).
 
Not particularly, different, I think. The Delta tradition in Mississippi was the biggest influence, and even that was in many ways congruent with existing trends in Lower Appalachian bands existing at the time.

If I had to guess, you'd likely see a bit more string influence in early rock rather than brass big band evolutions.
 
Black influence on white music arguably began earlier than most people in this thread are thinking: minstrel shows took a watered-down and racist form of African-American music across the country starting in the early 19th century, and from its earliest spread the syncopations and polyrhythms of the music fascinated white audiences. It’s plausible that everything after Stephen Foster in the American popular musical lexicon would be unrecognizable—yes, even folk, as many folk groups in areas like the Piedmont delta took shared influence from white and black local musicians.

In essence, most everything one might consider to be popular American music from its earliest origins has at least some African-American influence, and stripping that away would leave its sound unrecognizable.
 
The basics are that I would guess that rhythmically it would be different, melodically you would not have blues scales, and you would structurally would lack call-and-response. Probably many things beyond that.

But I think apart from that you would probably see the same explosion of experimentation with new technologies, sonic textures (electrification, sampling, synthesizers, drum machines, etc), increasingly sophisticated audience etc.

I think going "Oh, the music would just sound like the cheesiest Euro-Disco / Italo-Disco / Disco-Polka" and so on kind of misunderstand how sophistication and aesthetic in 20th century popular music arose (not because of a particular strand of African-American cultural influence but through broader cultural changes).

In some ways to a space alien, landing on both worlds, you may not have seen that many changes if you landed today, as some of the more distinctively African-American rhythmic elements like the blues scale and polyrhythmic structures end up pretty marginal in actual American popular music today? (Most hits are just major scales etc.). Rhythmically I think you would see some difference though, although how much of that would be convergence still, I don't know.

World music would be different though, not just US music - in our timeline a lot of New World African origin music kind of descends from the US music with its strong African-American heritage, moving outwards (you don't have any of the West Indian musical forms without US RnB records getting played there, etc).
 
Jewish Klezmer music is supposed to be a big influence on the blues, so maybe we'd still have the blues but lose the part of rock and roll rooted in race records.
 
Cajuns are French descendants from Canada?

Maybe more Celtic influence as well.
The Acadian migration was more complicated than many think. Some 11,000 French Acadians were expelled from 1755-1764. Most dispersed along North American coasts, some all the way back to Europe. The Spanish recruited them as settlers in Louisiana because they felt French Catholics would be more supportive than possible English settlers after the Seven Years War. Only some 4,000 survived the migration but those who did had large families. There were already many French in Louisiana, as well as Spanish. In 1809, another group of French migrants came From Haiti to Cuba to New Orleans:

Charles Maduell, Jr. writes, "in May and June of 1809 some 34 vessels containing 5754 refugees from Cuba, who were first refugees from the Negro revolt in San Domingue, arrived in New Orleans bringing with them the culture of educated Frenchman, who were rich plantation owners. These refugees had a short stay in Cuba because of the intolerance of the Spanish there, this is what brought them to New Orleans."
 
Bigger influence from Latin american music?

(but I guess that in turn begs the question how much influence did African slaves have on Latin american musical development!)
 
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