Music By People Of the African Diaspora: Internet resources

Center for Black Music Research (CBMR) holds collections highlighting the role of black music in world culture with materials originating or representing black music in the United States, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean in a variety of formats: personal papers, scores, sheet music, audio-visual materials, photographs, books, periodicals, and commercial recordings.

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem is one of the world’s leading cultural institutions devoted to the research, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diaspora, and African experiences. As a research division of The New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center features diverse programming and collections spanning over 11 million items that illuminate the richness of global Black history, arts, and culture.

At the AAAMC, you will find materials covering a range of African American musical idioms and cultural expressions primarily from the post-World War II era. Our collections highlight popular, religious, and classical music, with genres ranging from blues and gospel to R&B and contemporary hip hop. The AAAMC also houses extensive materials related to the documentation of black radio.

The Institute for Composer Diversity, winner of the 2018 ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Media/Internet Award and housed at the State University of New York at Fredonia, is dedicated to the celebration, education, and advocacy of music created by composers from historically underrepresented groups through database resources and programming analysis. The ICD is committed to the celebration, education, and advocacy of music created by composers from historically underrepresented genders, racial, ethnic, and cultural heritages, and sexual orientations as well as disabled composers. On the Composer Diversity Database, searches can be limited by Demographic Criteria, including African, Black, and Latin(x) / Latin American options.

Gateways Music Festival aims to be a valued resource for classical musicians of African descent around the world. The Festival maintains a growing database of more than 800 musicians and invites all musicians of African descent to join our growing network.

The Institute of Jazz Studies is the world's foremost jazz archive and research facility. It was founded in 1952 by Marshall Stearns (1908-1966), a pioneer jazz scholar. In 1966, Rutgers was chosen as the collection's permanent academic home. IJS is part of the Rutgers University Libraries, and in 1994 moved to spacious new quarters on the fourth floor of the John Cotton Dana Library on the Newark Campus. The Institute is used by students from Rutgers (especially those in the new Master's Program in Jazz History and Research) and other institutions, teachers, scholars, authors, independent researchers, musicians, the media, record companies, libraries and other archives, and arts agencies.

The mission of the Center for Southern African-American Music is to preserve and record oral histories, music recordings, film and video footage of African-American Music in the South to be remembered and enjoyed by all people. The university became the owner of 11 million feet of Movietone News rare footage film in 1980, and the collection holds some of the earliest footage of African-American songs. The Archive link near the bottom of the page connects to current and recent special exhibits at the Center.

The Blues Archive at the University of Mississippi acquires and preserves blues and blues-related materials in a variety of formats for scholars of the blues, African American studies, and southern culture. With over 60,000 sound recordings, in most audio formats; over 20,000 photographs; more than 1,000 videos; over 34,000 books, periodicals and newsletters; and numerous manuscripts and ephemera, the Blues Archive houses one of the largest collections of blues recordings, publications, and memorabilia in the world. Important collections include B. B. King's personal record collection, the Jim O'Neal and Amy van Singel / Living Blues Collection, the Trumpet Records Collection, the Sheldon Harris Collection, the John Richbourg Collection, and the Percy Mayfield collection. The site also includes many blues-related internet links.

.The Hiphop Archive and Research Institute's mission is to facilitate and encourage the pursuit of knowledge, art, culture and responsible leadership through Hiphop. The site provides information about all of HARI's activities and projects and serves as a resource for those interested in knowing, developing, building, maintaining and representing Hiphop.

This digital library was born out of a need to make resources about Black music history as comprehensive and accessible as possible. It contains well over one thousand entries (and counting) in the form of books, articles, documentaries, series, radio segments, and podcasts about the Black origins of popular and traditional music, dating from the 18th century to the present day. These materials range from informal to scholarly, meaning there is something in the library for everyone.

This webpage houses resources for music by composers of color. It is not intended to be limited to (a) “traditional” music theory topics or (b) notated music in the Western art music tradition. Analytical notes are being made available, while a Google Sheet summarizes music theory topics that can be taught using the repertoire. We welcome submissions of annotated scores and lesson plans that incorporate the music of composers of color. This site will be continually updated with more resources for music theory instructors.

A searchable database of vocal concert works by composers of the African Diaspora. (The African Diaspora in this context is defined as those composers throughout the world descended from people of West and Central Africa).

This subsection of the Museum of the American Diaspora (San Francisco, CA) website includes historical descriptions (with sound files), under these general categories: 1) SONGS OF LIFE, SONGS OF FREEDOM: African Music Past and Present ; 2) FEELING THE SPIRIT: African-Influenced Music in the American Vernacular ; 3) MOVING OUT: African-Influenced Music across the Caribbean and Latin America ; and 4) THE WRITTEN TRADITION: African-Influenced Composers.

A compendium of Internet sites, bibliographies, discographies, lesson plans and other teachers' guides and other resources covering all aspects and genres of African American music.

This search site brings together hundreds of thousands of digitized materials from over 1,000 libraries and archives across the country. These materials reflect all aspects of African American history and culture, including much music-related content.

Designed for everyone – musicians, performers, conductors, students, researchers, educators, artistic administrators, and anyone with a curious mind – this database provides access to thousands of works by women and gender-marginalized composers. By sharing knowledge and resources, BID increases access to works by underrepresented composers, empowering all who wish to diversify classical music programming.
Explore over 8,000 works by more than 1,200 composers with ease, available to you for free.

Born out of the desire to foster cultural curiosity, Castle of our Skins is a concert and educational series dedicated to celebrating Black artistry through music. From classrooms to concert halls, Castle of our Skins invites exploration into ​Black heritage and culture, spotlighting both unsung and celebrated ​figures of past and present.
Includes artist links, concert repertoire list, performance videos, and institutional and informational internet resources links.

Founded in 1997, this is the home of interchange between performers and scholars interested in art song by African-American composers. Here you will find information and links to assist with your discovery of African American contributions to song. Includes information about composers, performers, scholars, and publishers.

A Seat at the Piano promotes and advocates for the inclusion, study, and performance of a more equitably representative body of piano works. By creating a resource for musicians, pedagogues, and curious music appreciators, ASAP aims to broaden their knowledge of composers and their works. Includes indexed composer database.

Reviews of new Black music releases, hosted by the Archives of African American Music and Culture; updated in monthly issues.

Afropop Worldwide is a Peabody award-winning radio program and online magazine dedicated to music from Africa and the African diaspora. In 1988, Afropop was launched by NPR as a weekly series. It was the first of its kind and, almost 30 years later, the program has expanded its vision to include the music and cultures that encompass the entire African diaspora. The program is still the standard for both the curious and the connoisseur, and takes listeners to dynamic music capitals such as Dakar, Senegal; Johannesburg, South Africa; Cairo, Egypt; Havana, Cuba; Salvador de Bahia, Brazil; New York and Paris. Listeners meet the leading stars as well as emerging artists. Live concert recordings of world-class artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Cesaria Evora, Gilberto Gil, Baaba Maal, Kanda Bongo Man and others are featured on the program. The Afropop database also includes interviews, features, photos, CD reviews and artist profiles.

This portion of the Afro-Cuba website includes descriptions of various genres of Afro-Cuban music, links to musicians, dancers, and ensembles past and present, and events listings within and outside of Cuba.

A subset of Brazilianmusic.com, this includes links to Afro Brazilian arts, music, culture, and literature. In English and Portuguese.

The Spirituals Database offers searchable access to recorded track information for concert Negro Spiritual settings performed by solo Classical vocalists. The resource contains a selection from a century of historic and contemporary concert spiritual recordings produced on compact discs, long-playing (33 1/3 rpm) albums, 78 rpm records, 45 rpm discs, audio cassettes and streamed audio files, as well as demonstration recordings from musical score collections.

Music By Black Composers mission: (1) Inspire Black students to begin and continue instrumental training; (2) Make the music of Black composers available to everyone, (3) Help to change the face of classical music through greater diversity.