Throughout American slavery, African-Americans adopted and adapted various musical forms that were introduced into America, combining African rhythms and instruments with European styles. They also adapted African storytelling techniques to their situation in the New World. The result, over a long history, was the creation of hybrid musical styles that reflected the life of black Americans. While it is common today to relate America's most popular music to the black experience and to trace it back through slavery, it would be dangerous and unwise to make any "racial" stereotypes based on this. Rather than being an outgrowth of African "abilities", their contribution to American popular culture stems from the fact that music was one of the few means of expression open to African-Americans and they took advantage of this opportunity.

Historians have argued successfully that the Sambo stereotype was a creation of the plantocracy of the American South. It infantilized the slave by creating a happy-go-lucky, childlike, irresponsible worker who would at any given time choose play over work, thus justifying bondage in a paternalistic manner. In a situation based on power and control the slave responded to this and other ridiculous stereotypes by giving the masters what they wanted. So if a racial type did exist in the antebellum South it did so as a means of coping on the part of the bondsman and as justification and mechanism of social control for the master. Music fits very effectively into the stereotype as it can be seen and promoted as evidence to those who needed to promote the racial stereotype, while at the same time music functioned within the slave community as a coping devise, a means of protest and as a way to educate slave children to methods of survival.

To the outsider, the singing slave may be seen as evidence of the Sambo, but to the insider the subtle ways of understanding reveal a powerful sense of cultural identity. For example in the later years of slavery masters began converting their slaves to Christianity as a further means of social control. However, while slaves took to the faith, they did so in part as a means of cultural expression. The themes and power of gospel music reveals a belief that while a slave's life on earth may be "hell" the slaves will be rewarded for a life time of sorrow with eternal salvation. Thus we see the common theme of the coming of Jubilee in Negro spiritual. While never spoken, this promise of salvation for Christian slaves would conversely mean the possibility of damnation for their master.

Slaves also used music to lament their condition and express personal frustration. These songs, it would seem, became a foundation for what evolved into the Blues. While Blues history is closely linked to the degradation of the African American in the Reconstruction era, its roots must date back to slavery. The differences in the two periods would seem to be a more urban based experience for some Blacks after emancipation and the fact that the promises of unlimited opportunities for African Americans after the Civil War often went unrealized. However the lack of personal control and sense of powerlessness in both eras found expression in black music.

However, the life of the slave was not all morose and the bondsmen took their pleasures where they could. Music was an important part of weddings, festivals and holidays for slaves. It was associated with times when slaves could exercise relative control over their own lives. This may have reinforced the importance of music in the slave community.

It would be the unwise master that taught his property to read and write, consequently slaves were disproportionately illiterate. However this does not mean that they were uneducated. Again, it was through music that slaves passed on coping mechanisms and lessons of survival and resistance to their children. The most famous American examples can be found in the B'rer Rabbit stories. In these folk tales the powerful and strong are tricked and manipulated by the quick witted and clever...a lesson not lost on slave children. Not coincidentally, similar folk tales can be found in the slave experience in the West Indies in Anancy (the spider) stories and can be traced back to West African folk culture. It can be argued then that this type of resistance has a long cultural diaspora which was modified to meet the realities of different situations. If it was the Sambo that the master wanted, it was the Sambo that some slaves gave, putting the slave in a more advantageous position by controlling the situation to some degree. Within the slave community the Sambo was a trick necessary for survival and outside the slave's world it was a necessary condition for the perpetuation of the plantocracy.

Beginning in the 1840s and gaining momentum throughout the rest of the century, Minstrel Shows became popular in America. The variety acts featured white performers in black face, imitating Negro in a dehumanizing manner. While the music mimicked African American styles, it lacked the social critique common in the original music. The use of stock characters perpetuated racial stereotypes even after emancipation, such as "Jim Crow" a Sambo type character and "Zip Coon", a hustler and more "dangerous" persona. Blues was never featured, since the style spoke to a less acceptable black attitude. In fact what Minstrel Shows did, beyond perpetuating ridiculous racial stereotypes was to present to white audiences a more "acceptable" and less threatening black culture that confirmed their beliefs.

In the slave experience, Black musicians were used for white entertainment. The Minstrel Shows were a more professional continuation of the selling of black music, bleached and sanitized, for a white audience. This style was made increasingly available because of advances in travel, sheet music and disposable income for industrial workers. Its most obvious, and regrettable, social function was the perpetuation of racial attitudes. The most famous of the writers of Minstrel Show songs was the white Pennsylvanian native Stephen Foster who supplied "hits" for traveling shows such as the Christy Minstrel Show (ie: "Old Folks at Home"). Foster's work presents a picture of a bucolic South but to his credit he did not seem to write songs that consciously promoted negative images of Black Americans. Foster, tied into the growing commodification of music, was instrumental in promoting Black (styled) music as a uniquely American art form, but as would happen over and over again in the twentieth century, authentic Black culture would be cleaned up and purged of those things offensive to white sensibilities. In the Black community, similar styles of music existed, but Blues, jazz and "folk songs" in the segregated world of the late nineteenth century spoke to the frustrations and realities of Black life. Black music was so successful as a uniquely American type in the period of extreme nationalism that W.C. Handy was even able to include Blues (styled) songs in his turn of the century performances at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Through its journey from the slave quarters to the mainstream of American popular culture, Black music of the nineteenth century reveals important patterns of development. In the hands of thrusting capitalism, the music became fun and playful escapism designed to make a profit via performance and the sale of sheet music by appealing to the masses. Unconsciously, but perniciously, the music style in the hands of the white dominant culture perpetuated the racial attitudes which existed at the time and kept African Americans from realizing the promise of the nation. However in the Black community the music still possessed its sense of social and political critique and promoted uniqueness beyond standardization for profit. In both freedom and slavery, authentic African American musical styles provided a voice for their frustrations, a means to cope and express themselves when other options were denied them.

There is a connection that runs from the slave communities to the urban music halls of industrial England. Via the sanitized versions of Black American music and the Minstrel Shows, African American music found its way to the working classes of England. This was accomplished in large part again by the availability of inexpensive sheet music and transportation and, finally, the transatlantic trips by American Minstrel Shows. The perpetuation of dehumanizing racial stereotypes was not confined to America.

Music Halls began to develop from pub performances in the growing industrial centres of England to provide entertainment for working class people. As historian Peter Bailey has argued the tensions between the bourgeois and working class culture began to reveal itself early in the history of the Music Halls (This "struggle for control" of industrial leisure can be found in many other aspects on Victorian Britain as well.) Novelist Colin MacInnes argues effectively that the Music Hall and modern pop music had the same functions, to entertain for profit, but it should noted that entertainment was an area of social mediation.

Like the Minstrel Shows, Music Hall performance relied on stock characters such as the swell and ethnic stereotypes such as Paddy (Irish) and Taffy (Welsh). Themes in the songs related to the realities of working class life such as the job, sea songs and poverty. Music Hall star, Marie Lloyd's tribute to "shooting the moon", "My Old Man Said Follow the Van" was a particular favorite, especially among those in the audience who themselves had "done a runner". Bailey, again, notes that there was a subtle sense of "knowing" between audience and performer that allowed for insinuation and what Monty Python's Flying Circus would later characterize as "Nudge...Nudge...Wink...Wink ...know what I mean?". Songs were often filled with rude suggestions and tongue-in-cheek satire that mocked social superiors. In fact Music Hall reputations got so bad and the need to control them resulted in the creation in 1879 of the Music Hall censor so that punters could have "fun without filth".

This is an interesting position on popular culture that assumes that the villain in this relationship is the performer. That is it assumes that the audience is a passive participant in the entertainment process. In fact performers would give their audiences what they wanted or realize the wrath of "The Gallery Boys", hecklers, who would throw rivets at poor performers. The censor may have believed that he was helping in promote good clean fun, but it was not what the punters wanted and so were given their entertainment in part as innuendo, intonation and double meanings. Sexuality, while perhaps oppressed by the middle classes was an important part of the Music Hall, extending to the very popular male impersonator such as Jenny Hill. This interest in sexuality flies in the face of assumptions made about Victorian culture, as does the interest in puerile pornography and the high rates of prostitution.

It is also important to keep in mind that while the working classes frequented the Halls and were their main target audience, middle class bohemians were also frequenters of the Halls. Perhaps they were seeking "a bit of rough" or a dangerous night out but there was a desire on the part of some to escape the repressive nature of bourgeois sexual practices that the Music Hall contradicted. When by the end of the nineteenth century the heir to the throne, Edward VII, became known as a supporter of the Music Halls, they developed a greater sense of legitimacy, as Victorian morality began to break down.

There was a large degree of cross pollination between the Music Hall and Minstrel Shows made possible by improved transatlantic communication. Both could borrow tunes from the other and inexpensive sheet music and instruments made songs from one country available to another. For example Foster was very popular in England, while Music Hall stars such as Percy Horni (note the surname) toured America. Even by the end of the nineteenth century, popular culture was no longer confined to national boarders and there was evidence of a transatlantic popular culture. This might have been played out at its best when British pop group the Beatles brought English fashion and hair styles to America in the early 1960s, but their musical styles and influences were clearly American. The roots of this cross-fertilization, however, date back a century before.

The two musical developments of the nineteenth century discussed above are only a small example of the development in popular culture in nineteenth century music. The Brass Band Movement popular in Northern England, Nationalist movements reflected in music of Germany and the US, Blues and many other types music were also popular developments. All of the musical developments reflect the historical context in which they emerged and all of the movements lend themselves to various theories of popular culture.

It would seem from the above discussion that "popular" music can emanate from the people or be created for the people, depending on the situation. Certainly music created for the people (mass culture) was less political and designed to appeal to the broader music buying public. As will become evident in the next section, again, the business of music has a tendency to incorporate existing popular music and purge it of its social critique and anti-social meaning and then resell it to the mainstream. In the case of both the Music Hall songs and Black American music, those with political and social influence attempted to rob the music of its deep, more important social value, through censorship and the "bleaching process". This would be consistent with the theories related to hegemony, which argue for the dominant cultures' ability to unconsciously promote its own values. This is evident in the promotion of racial stereotypes using a watered down version of "Black" music common to the Minstrel Shows.

Another issue which reveals itself in the above discussion is that within the group, there are subtle ways of understanding, unique to the insider that the dominant culture cannot penetrate. This gives the insider a sense of knowing that the non-participant cannot gain simply by listening to the music. This sense of knowing makes popular music a power means of sub-culture identity in that it is not the music itself which is important but the socio-political use of the music. In both cases above the music is played for and enjoyed by the dominant culture but lacking in the understanding of the social critique.

For those inclined toward a conflict theory approach to history, in a very subtle way at times the uses and control of music would indicate a struggle between the dominant culture and popular culture. Many of the themes touched on in this section will continue in the twentieth century. The co-opting and sanitation of popular music, the use of music as a social critique and the subtle sense of knowing which confirms sub-culture identity are all major themes in pop music history in the twentieth century.