The History of Black Music: A Living Continuum

In this opening lecture of The History of Black Music: A Living Continuum, J Plunky Branch traces the roots of Black music back to Africa—long before America, long before borders, long before ships. Music is presented not as entertainment, but as a lifeline: a communal practice that taught children, timed the crops, carried news, sanctified ritual, and steeled warriors. Plunky introduces the foundational instrument families created in African cultures - membraneophones, aerophones, chordophones, and idiophones—and explains the three core characteristics that shaped Black music across centuries: polyrhythm, improvisation, and high energy. These principles form the DNA of the music that followed Black people across oceans and into the Americas. This lecture begins a ten-part chronological journey through Black music history, setting the stage for the forced migration beginning in 1619 and the transformation of African musical intelligence into work songs, spirituals, and the earliest forms of Black American music. This is not a story of loss, but of continuity—of traditions carried, adapted, and reimagined across time.