The sounds and traditions brought over by African slaves from the Motherland have shaped the bedrock of every musical genre in the American canon. Even so, the originators and practitioners of these musical stylings have not received credit, especially in the form of monetary compensation for their contributions. Now, in the 21st century, officers of the court, politicians, and scholars are working to correct these injustices.
Just as slave labor built this country without the benefit of tangible monetary compensation, the memories of an African past mingled with the European styles of immigrants to provide the soundtrack for its settlement.
‘Holla Back’: Lessons from the Motherland
These influences have shaped America in ways not readily acknowledged aside from the obvious examples of blues, gospel, and soul music. The banjo—a mainstay of country music—has its origins in the stringed instruments from Africa. These include chordophones, string instruments, like the kora and ngoni. The rudiments of them found their way through West Africa to the Caribbean before reaching the continental United States.
The call and response is a conversational technique used to call tribal members to events, allowing all to take part, even if they are not accomplished singers. It quickly found its way into the fields. The method was used in work songs to ease labor, uniting slaves to work as a team. This stratum currently exists in blues, gospel, and popular music as a whole.
Record producers to this day readily utilize call and response to captivate the public. It’s catchy, it elicits a conversational relationship with the listener, and it’s interactive long before the word entered the lexicon of digital media.
The Jackson 5 entered pop immortality in 1969 with “I Want You Back,” with lead singer Michael Jackson pleading for reconciliation with a scorned lover, while his brothers amplified his desperation with repetition of the title refrain. Perhaps the ultimate compliment/cultural theft is Gwen Stefani’s 2005 hit “Hollaback Girl,” produced by Pharrell Williams.
Dues Paid and to be Collected
In this instance, the push for royalties may function as an adjunct for damages due in the parallel but overlapping area of slave reparations.
“Musicians and creatives are just one of a long list of people affected by discrimination, and we evaluated the types of discrimination that all Black people are experiencing, including musicians and creatives, and came up with recommendations of how to repair the harm and make sure that the systems of exploitation and discrimination don’t continue to do harm,” said Lisa Holder, president of the Equal Justice Society and a member of the California Reparations Task Force.
Attorney Lisa Holder has 20-plus years as a civil rights litigator and scholar, and led Gov. Gavin Newsom to select her for the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans in 2021. Two years later, they produced a 1200-page report on the impact of anti-Black discrimination with recommendations to resolve the issue.
“I’m a civil rights attorney, a civil rights scholar. I don’t want to misrepresent myself… I’m not a lawyer for musicians; that’s not what I do,” said Holder. She further added, “In two of the chapters, chapters nine and 26, we deal specifically with artists, musicians, and folks in the creative fields,” she said.
Chapter nine covers the early stages of American entertainment in which minstrel shows depicting racial stereotypes became popular and profitable well after the end of slavery. Chapter 26 covers the exploitation of minority student-athletes who generate multi-millions in revenue at the collegiate and professional levels, often ending their careers with low graduation rates or academic prowess to succeed in a competitive economy. It also calls for the removal of Confederate statues and edifices celebrating the exploitation and degradation of people of African descent.
By training a civil rights lawyer, Holder is committed to changing the collective consciousness about race. Through the Equal Justice Society (EJS) she engages the artistic community in the pursuit of social justice and humanity.
“Creative artistry touches people on a very emotional level and sometimes can transform the way that people think about race very effectively. Sometimes more effectively even than policy.”
EJS continues annual cultural explorations for Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery. This year’s event involves “An Exhibition in Print,” a magazine-formatted exploration of gender, health, and race. Holder encourages everyone to partake by accessing the website at www.equaljusticesociety.org/juneteenth.
“Working with artists is a very compelling way to tell a story, and it really can impact hearts and minds, sometimes way more effectively than bringing a lawsuit,” said Holder.
Music, cultural difference, and touring
Aside from the obvious racism and xenophobia—fear of outsiders—problems in securing compensation for Black creativity may lie in the very nature of remnants of African music existing in Western culture. The answer may be solved by examining the differences between African and American cultures.
European music derives complex, harmonic chords from its chromatic scale of twelve evenly spaced notes. The African system utilizes the pentatonic 5-note scale or, with the addition of a flatted fifth note, the hexatonic 6-note scale. This extra note becomes the hard-to-define “blue note“ that can be bent, slurred, or feature a musical interval between the individual keys of a piano. By using a system of scales with fewer notes, players and singers are given more freedom for complexity and improvisation.
Improvisation and spontaneity are rooted in the fabric of African music, dependent on the communal traditions of its native land. These traditions continued across the Atlantic and into the agricultural fields and church choirs of the antebellum South.
It contrasts with European conventions, which utilize the visual aids of notation and sheet music, which in turn are conducive to the legal protocols of copyright laws and intellectual property protections.
Early performers like Bessie Smith earned most of their income through performances and touring, which continued into the middle of the 20th century, when Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog” was appropriated by Elvis Presley. Annette May Thomas grew up on the gospel side of the “chitlin’ circuit, accompanying her father, Brother Joe May, on tour with Aretha Franklin.
Little known of him today, in his heyday, he was “The Thunderbolt of the Middle West.” He has been called “arguably the greatest male soloist in the history of gospel music.” A gifted vocalist in her own right, his daughter was a peer of Aretha Franklin, and they traveled with their fathers throughout the American East. She remembers them receiving no more than 5 percent of the total sales of their recordings. Thomas eventually left the road for marriage and steady work as a school teacher, while Aretha became the “Queen of Soul.”
Securing Representation
People of color have utilized their skills in the legal profession to focus on this niche discipline. Among them is Attorney Kevin J. Greene, a legal scholar and professor who has led the quest for financial redress for African Americans in music and entertainment.
“My analysis was the first comprehensive examination of how the law—copyright and contracts—played a pivotal role in what I call the Great American Heist—the theft of Black gold in the form of musical works,” he recalls.
Before he made his entrance, no one made a serious venture into this realm of the underrepresented, as he notes:
“…people may have mentioned the idea of reparations for Black artists, but not within the framework of copyright law, systemic inequities, or critical race theory.”
One of the most flagrant examples that prompted the push for residuals was Barrett Strong, the composer of “Money (That’s What I Want),” often attributed to Motown founder Berry Gordy. Excluded from royalties or credit from the initial release, he eventually received a settlement before dying in 2023.
Like Holder, Greene is an attorney and a scholar, currently on the faculty at Southwestern Law School. He is the author of numerous articles and texts on entertainment law and intellectual property, especially the appropriately titled “Thieves in the Temple: The Scandal of Copyright Registration and African-American Artists,” published by Pepperdine University.
His other accolades include being a consultant for a BBC documentary entitled “The Battle for Black Music: Paid in Full,” which outlined the history of exploitation of Black artists.
He also testified as an expert before the California Reparations Committee, the first in the nation to address reparations in the entertainment industry. He has established a template for future claims by disgruntled musicians and encourages others to vote for policies advocating redress for Blacks and other marginalized artists.
All in all, more work has to be done for Black artists to receive their proper pay, an issue that one can also apply to descendants of African slaves; the modern-day African American community is still grappling with the possibility of reparations.
