Although the Negro-Art movement included novelists and visual artists, it was the poets and bandleaders who became the face of the Harlem Renaissance. It is in the field of music that African-American Art has had the most widespread and enduring success and influence.

Music as the Dominant Art in Black Culture

The musicality of Black culture is caused by its Southern, agricultural roots. As with all people laboring on a farm in hot weather for long periods of time, Blacks passed the time with song. These songs are typically considered as a society's folk music. It is typically catchy, simple, and characterized by motion, as a diddy or nursery rhyme is. Unlike a society's formal music, such as classical music or modern pop music, folk songs are of unknown origin and are not performed by professional musicians.

As a Positive Distinguishing Feature

Music is the focus of much African-American writing...
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