If you’ve ever typed “what is mandopop music” into a search bar, you’ve likely been met with dry definitions: Mandarin-language popular music from Greater China. That answer is technically correct…
The Origins of Afrobeats Genre: Answering the Core Question First If you came here for the origins of afrobeats genre, here is the blunt answer: modern Afrobeats (the plural, pop-driven…
The History of Gospel Music Starts With a Blended Heritage (And a Clear Answer) When readers ask for the history of gospel music, they usually want four things: where it…
The Story of Reggae in Jamaica Starts With the Island’s First Peoples If you want a straight answer to “what is the history of reggae in Jamaica?”, most articles begin…
What Is Neo Soul Music? The Auditory Fingerprint First If you’re asking “what is neo soul music,” the shortest honest answer is that it’s a late-1990s–born genre defined less by…
The History of Jazz Music Timeline at a Glance If you want a true history of jazz music timeline, think of it as a continuous river from West African griot…
What Are the True Origins of Country Music? The true origins of country music are multicultural and rooted in three centuries of contact between British/Irish immigrants, enslaved and free African…
The history of punk rock movement is too often shrunk to a tidy 1976 London flashpoint or a CBGB New York timeline. In my two decades of archiving basement shows,…
The Birth of Hip Hop Bronx: Why It Happened in the South Bronx, Not a Studio The birth of hip hop bronx is not a single night or a single…
The History of the Disco Era Is a Story of Liberation, Not Just Music The history of the disco era is often reduced to a four-year fad that ended at…