Music in slavery

In Leroi Jone’s book Blues People: Negro Music in White America, he explains that, “Africans were forced into an alien world where none of the references or cultural shapes of any familiar human attitudes were available is the determinant of the kind of existence they had to eke out here.” He explains that slaves retained some parts of African culture and the other part was sculpted by the weight of their situation in America.  He argues that this created a new race.  And this race wanted its own music.  It can be said that the new music reflected the transition of African slaves to African American.  From the beginning, African American music reflected changes in the culture and the culture’s perception of their race.  Their music was a way of giving them identity and demonstrates their reliance to society. Here is the PBS website that does an excellent job and breaking down the different types of slavery music and explaining it's significance in our society. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/education/feature.html