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2.2.2Black Music History: How Black Music Changed the World
Over the past couple of centuries, Black Americans have combined the versatile melodic and harmonic aspects of European tonal music with their own polyrhythmic and improvisational traditions to create a number of irresistible genres that have spread around the world. Practically everywhere you go on the planet, a large proportion of the recorded and live popular music you hear consists of genres that originated with Black Americans—hip-hop, rock, electronica, jazz, blues.
The secret of the global success of popular music genres of Black American origin is that they tend to emphasize numerous powerful musical universals simultaneously—so many universals that non-African Americans in nations worldwide can relate to the music.
Human nature does not vary from culture to culture. If a human takes a liking to something technical or artistic from another culture, said human will adopt it, without bothering too much about where it came from. If it’s an artistic element, and it’s emotionally powerful, nothing else matters much.