Curriculum unit
The Sound of a People: Black Music
How Black Americans created the music that became the soundtrack of the modern world — from spirituals to the blues, jazz, gospel, soul, Motown, and hip-hop.
Students trace the lineage of Black American music and explain how each form grew from the one before and from the conditions of Black life.
- Lesson 1 · 1 class period
From spirituals to the blues
ObjectivesTrace Black American music from African roots and spirituals to the blues.
MaterialsTimeline entries below; the Jazz and Black Music themes.
Begin with West African rhythms and the spirituals, then the rise of the blues out of the rural South.
Teach from these momentsDiscussion questionsHow did enslaved people make music, and what did it carry? How did the blues grow from it?
- Lesson 2 · 1 class period
Jazz, gospel, and soul
ObjectivesFollow the music north and into jazz, gospel, and soul.
MaterialsTimeline entries below; Louis Armstrong; Aretha Franklin.
From Louis Armstrong's jazz to Mahalia Jackson's gospel to Aretha Franklin's soul.
Teach from these momentsDiscussion questionsHow did the Great Migration carry the music north? How did gospel become soul?
- Lesson 3 · 1 class period
Motown to hip-hop
ObjectivesConnect Motown's crossover to the birth and rise of hip-hop.
MaterialsTimeline entries below; the Hip-Hop theme.
From Berry Gordy's Motown to the 1973 birth of hip-hop and its global reach.
Teach from these momentsDiscussion questionsHow did Motown change American pop? How did hip-hop become the world's dominant sound?