Opal Class Assembly
Black History Month
Mona: Welcome to Opal Class assembly.
Tallulah: For Black History Month, we looked at the history of music, and the
influence Black Americans had on modern music. We owe them a lot!
Kyroane: It is going to be an all-singing, all-dancing assembly!
Dominik: Well, not ALL singing. We have quite a lot of cool facts for you.
Riley: Allow me to use a time turner. We will only go back a century or so.
Huda: But even before then, gospel music, which originally came from slaves,
had already started changing the music scene.
1890s
Naylah: There, the late 1800s, United States of America.
Raye: After the civil war, which ended slavery, African Americans got jobs
on brass bands.
Erlis: They invented a kind of music called ragtime.
1920s
Hussein: In New Orleans, ragtime met blues, which came from hymns and
songs of field workers of the South.
Mojtaba: It was also influenced by European folk music.
Milly: It is there that jazz was born. You might have heard of people like
Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole.
Song
Miku: Although all these styles are still played today, they were the
foundation for all the music that came after.
1930s
Cairo: In clubs in Harlem, African Americans developed a more dancey kind of
jazz: swing.
(DANCE)
1950s
Himanshu: In the 1950s, swing was on the way out.
Harrison: In cities like Memphis, different communities, black and white, met
and influenced each other’s music.
Joshua: This was the start of rock ‘n’ roll.
Elina: At the same time, gospel music from black communities had influenced
a new style: soul.
Nawal: Soul was made popular by people like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin.
Song
1960s
Demi: By the 1960s, rock n’ roll had become rock, and it is still evolving today.
Anas: Famous black musicians of the time include Jimi Hendrix.
Shakira: Rhythm and Blues also influenced a new genre of music, which was
started in Jamaica.
Joshua: You’ve got it: it’s the birth of Reggae.
Song
1970s
Meriam: Around the same time, Rhythm and Blues was mixing with rock.
Amira: The word R&B first started being used, but it meant anything from
soul to funk and disco.
Sumaya: This period also sees the rise of pop music, and with it the King of
Pop.
Song (Michael Jackson)
2000 – 2015
Milly: In the years 2000, R&B began to incorporate more electronic and
machine-made sounds and instruments.
(Song/ dance)
Harrison: Now, we are nearly back in the present. But we have left out an
important kind of music. Can you guess what it is? It’s a little bit like poetry.
It became popular with hip hop in the 80s and 90s. And it was also started in
black communities. It’s rap of course!
(Rap)
Amira: Music is always changing, but as you can see our musical heritage can
be traced back all the way to those African American field workers and their
songs of hope and freedom.
Dominik: Thank you for listening to our assembly.