This encyclopedia entry gives a brief history of rap and hip hop and the influences of the music on modern culture.

A supplement to a ten-part film series on jazz, this resource describes the growth and development of jazz music from the gritty streets of New Orleans to the Lincoln Gardens on Chicago's south side, where Louis Armstrong first won fame,...

The First World War had a crippling effect on any notions of positivity in the artists, writers, and intellectuals of that time and they became known as the Lost Generation. This page discusses this group of people, the emergence of jazz...

This site offers the first chapter of Ted Gioia's book, "The History of Jazz." This chapter focuses on the prehistory of jazz, including the Africanization of American music, country blues and classic blues, and Scott Joplin and Ragtime.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Etta Baker, an American folk musician who influenced the folk music revival of the 1950s and '60s with her mastery of East Coast Piedmont blues, a unique fingerpicking style of...

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Louis Jordan, an American saxophonist-singer prominent in the 1940s and '50s who was a seminal figure in the development of both rhythm and blues and rock and roll. The bouncing, rhythmic...

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features De La Soul, an American rap group whose debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising (1989), was one of the most influential albums in hip-hop history.