Prominent cities where Black Culture has evolved into its distinct, unique culture.
 

What cities are capitals of Black culture and history? I’m thinking of places with it’s own distinguished traditions, legacy, art, and history that stands on its own as a unique or history defining Black experience.

In the US:

New York: Hip Hop (DJ/MC/Breakers/Graffiti), Harlem Renaissance, 5 percenter Idealogy, the Nation of Islam, West Indian/African American hybrid culture. Puerto Rican and other Latino influence.

Los Angeles: LA gang culture, Gangsta Rap, a history of Mexican influence, such as Low Riders.

Chicago: Gospel, Soul, House, Chicago gang culture, Juking/Footworking, Stepping, a hotbed of Black Militant and Black Political activity, the headquarters of the NOI and Operation Push.

The Bay Area: Black Panthers, unique insular Hip Hop Music/Slang/Fashion/Dance that you'll only find in the Bay (though it seems the official name for it changes every 4 years :haha:), a history of multiculturalism within the Black community. Probably the only major example of Black/Asian cooperation.

Atlanta: Civil rights history, Trap, unofficial center of Black Church culture, capitol of Black wealth excess, an efficiently run Black metropolis. The only city in America (that isn’t losing population) where Black people are not only prominent, but dominant in every aspect of life.

New Orleans: Creole culture, Black “Indians”, Voodoo, Jazz, Blues, Bounce, 2nd Lines, a whole slew of old and new traditions and slang you won’t find anywhere else.

To a lesser extent:

Washington DC: GoGo music, African American/African hybrid culture.

Houston: Screw music, capital of Black Southern car culture (Slab)

Detroit: Motown

What about Canada? Overseas places such as Paris and London. South America. The countries of Haiti, Belize, Bahamas, Jamaica I’d be interested in hearing from those who have visited or live there.

I think Black culture in Houston may be a bit more complex than Screw and Slab. Houston is where Deep South Black culture met Texas Black culture met Mexican immigrant culture met Tejano culture met French-speaking Black Creole culture from Louisiana. I keep meaning to by this book...thanks for reminding me...I’m going to now.


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"Steptoe probes deeply and insightfully into the cultural and racial dynamics of Creoles of color, black Texans, and ethnic Mexicans where these communities transformed conventional understandings of racial space and place in the Jim Crow South, often despite differences in language, religion, racial identity, and especially musical expression—from jazz, blues, and 'la-la' to Tejano soul, orquesta, zydeco, and the cross-racial music of Beyoncé and Chingo Bling. Houston Bound is a historical tour de force that reveals the Bayou City and its intricately entwined cultures as a close cousin of New Orleans."—Neil Foley, author of Mexicans in the Making of America


Edited to add: In case anyone may mistakenly think the influx of Black Louisianans was a recent event caused by Hurricane Katrina, there was a huge wave a Black and Creole Louisianans into Houston after the 1927 Mississippi River flood.

I think Miami and New Orleans have the most unique black American culture, in that it is very regional and many elements of it don't really exist outside of those regions. I don't know if I'd say that about NYC/Chicago/Detroit/L.A./Bay Area, etc. Those cities basically mainstreamed black culture, and they also overlap with each other so much that it's hard to distinguish.

Atlanta is somewhere between the two extremes. There is a distinct regional version of black American culture in Atlanta, but like northern cities, they also export so much of it that the line between their own regional variety is kind of blurry.

Elsewhere in the western world, besides obvious places like the Caribbean, London and Paris have their own distinct varieties of African descended culture. As does Rio de Janeiro and especially Salvador, Bahia.

Here's a picture of 1964 South LA that was posted to the noirish LA thread a while back. For some reason it's stuck with me. It's evocative of some kind of lost world, a Black America that never was.

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In terms of a capital of black culture and history, I don't think one can overstate the importance of Pittsburgh. Yet, that fact is largely unknown.

Pittsburgh had a nationally-prominent, distinct, unique, and incredibly consequential black culture -- the center of the other great black "renaissance", beginning in the 1910s.

For a half-century stretch, there was no center of black culture that was more dynamic and influential. It was built by industrial might and it was destroyed by its demise.

I'm interested to hear more about this. I know there are some famous black Pittsburghers, and I saw the August Wilson AA Cultural Center downtown last time I was in the city, but Pittsburgh seems decidedly less black, and less culturally influenced by its black population than its peer/nearby cities.

In some ways, I think every city with a substantial Black population can claim a level of importance or contribution to the greater culture. Cincinnati and Dayton, oddly enough, are often considered the birthplace of Funk music. James Brown recorded a ton of his music in Cincy, and it's the hometown of Bootsy Collins, the Isley Brothers, among others. You can read more about Dayton's claim to the funk capital here:
https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/a...pital-of-funk/

Beyond the US, I would think Paris and London, as you said, as well as Marseille, Salvador and potentially Havana?

Something seems to be gelling in Toronto on that kind of London-ish pan-African diaspora level but I'd be pretty hesitant to drag out the old chestnuts of Jazz Age Little Burgundy in Montreal and Africville in Halifax considering that we are talking about formative places like Chicago and New Orleans here.

What about the metropoli of actual sub-Saharan Africa? It's a bit of a different thing than the diaspora centres but the sheer growth and magnetic pull of a place like Lagos has to be a sort of game-changer...? Nigeria seems to be its own musical universe these days, and one that goes really deep; I am interested in any place that just sort of says "no" to globalized culture and turns inward. That can be a fertile thing when combined with growth and young surging populations.

In terms of African diaspora culture, and Nigerian specifically, you might want to keep an eye on Texas, as well. Yeah, I know, the same Texas that everyone thinks is nothing but racist rednecks in pickup trucks. There are more Nigerian immigrants in Texas than in all of Canada. There are twice as many as in New York State. Houston is second only to New York City in number of Nigerian immigrants within the city proper.

And people wonder why I prefer living in Houston to San Antonio.

Nowhere like Oaktown, aka "The Town":

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https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/12/...ercial-lakers/

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Yes, Pittsburgh definitely is decidedly less black than its peer/nearby cities, and significantly less influenced as a city by its black population. That's the sad and shameful part, considering the immense contributions to black American history.

Pittsburgh has had a difficult racial history, to say the least, and the Pittsburgh region's fractured physical geography never allowed the black population to reach a critical mass to become more politically visible and influential locally with black mayors and other leaders earlier on... the black population centers were just too spread out up and down the river valley industrial cities and towns and far apart from each other to coalesce for significant political power in the city.

When the money was flowing in the Pittsburgh region like nowhere else on Earth at the time, life was pretty good for all, and Pittsburgh had a large black middle and (for the time) upper-middle classes... with the best public high schools in the nation being fully integrated; Schenley and Westinghouse high schools both being nationally-notable foundations of Pittsburgh's black renaissance. And then, life was rather suddenly not good for all... and of course, the black population felt it the hardest and the most quickly with the demise, then collapse of the steel industry.

While a fraction of the size of NY or Chicago, Pittsburgh is where the Courier was founded, written, and published. Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, and FDR/Democratic Party don't exist without the influence of the Pittsburgh Courier. The most widely-circulated and most influential black newspaper in America.

Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays... anyone who knows baseball, well those team names are really all that needs to be said... two of the greatest Negro League franchises in the same town, and the teams/owners who solidified the Negro Leagues as true stable, professional organizations. The first instance of a black-owned and black-funded and black-built sports stadium and field in the nation was Greenlee Field in the Hill District, home field of the Crawfords. Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, Buck Leonard, Judy Johnson, Satchel Paige, Gus Greenlee, Willie Foster, Smokey Joe Williams, Boojum Wilson, Cum Posey... these are the names in the absolute upper echelons of black baseball royalty... very likely the best baseball players of the era, and among the best baseball players of all time.

Early industrialist Cap Posey was reportedly the wealthiest black man in the nation in the early 1900s, the nation's first black professional engineer, business associate of Carnegie and Frick. His son Cum Posey was "the Michael Jordan" of the 1900s-1920s; who founded the Monticello Athletic Assn. and Leondi Big Five... these were the teams that largely introduced basketball to black people... the "Black Fives" or "Black Basketball"; Cum is the only person in both the baseball and basketball halls of fame. (It is a crime that Pittsburgh does not have an NBA team.)

Loendi Social & Literary Club, the nation’s most prestigious private club for African Americans, located in Pittsburgh's famed Hill District... which was the epicenter of it all, and also was home to the Pythian Temple, Hurricane Lounge, and Crawford Grill among others... legendary sites for black jazz. The roster of jazz musicians from Pittsburgh is among the most impressive in the history of the musical form ... these are just some of internationally known jazz musisicians from that specific era in the Hill District (with absolute luminaries in bold):

Art Blakey
Lou Blackburn
Ray Brown
Paul Chambers
Sonny Clark
Kenny Clarke
Ray Crawford
Billy Eckstine
Roy Eldridge
Erroll Garner
Slide Hampton
Earl Fatha Hines
Joe Harris
Lena Horne
Ahmad Jamal
Eddie Jefferson
Grover Mitchell
Horace Parlan
Wyatt Ruther
Dakota Staton
Billy Strayhorn
Maxine Sullivan
Stanley Turrentine
Mary Lou Williams

I mean, fuck... look at those names. If you know anything about jazz, the you know these people make up a significant history of it. The Hill District was a major center of black culture back in the day, one of THE major African-American neighborhoods in the US. Aside from Harlem, there arguably is not a more culturally-influential historic black neighborhood in America... referred to as the "Crossroads of the World" by Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay, due to its serving as the East-West nexus for black culture and black entrepreneurism. This provided the setting to engender Hill District native August Wilson's work... he being the most prominent black American playwright... and one of the best American playwrights, period.

Yet, it sucks that no one really knows the very deep and rich black history of Pittsburgh... and much of that is due to the fact that city "leaders" plowed much of the neighborhood down by the 1960s. Tragic.

Great writeups on Pittsburgh and Houston, nice shots of LA and the Town.

Lagos is hot right now. Have you ever listened to their radio? They speak that Pidgin English so fast, it's like hearing Twista rap. They have BBC in Pidgin too. Here's a video filmed in Lagos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umBS-HEUImM

Ghana, most notably in Accra, has been cashing in on advertising to Black America with its "Back to Africa" movement. Black celebrities building homes there, and a steady stream of Black Americans making pilgrimages there every year. It also has a rich music scene, and has the advantage of a low crime rate.

There's also Jozi in South Africa, which is breaking out with it's own scene.

Kigali, Rwanda now has a continental reputation for being clean and safe.

I'm also interested in what's going on in the more Islamic centered countries of S.S.A., Mali, the Gambia, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone. I find unique cultural mashups interesting, traditional tribal meets French or Portuguese meets Islamic culture should produce some interesting output. Then there's Equatorial Guinea. How much did Spanish culture influence that country? I want to go there just to hear the dialect.

On that tangent, are there cities in the Arab world with a similar Black presence?

The footage I've seen of Compton in its original condition made it look like the nicest place on Earth for Black people.

I remember hearing ads for the LCBO in Toronto having a conversation between a group of Black Women with them using cadences and colloquial expressions like "Girrrrrrllllll....you KNOW..." I feel like I don't want to mention some roundabout influence from Drake, but I also feel it's not off the table.

Any thread like this without a mention of Memphis is an incomplete thread.

W.C. Handy released America's first Blues recording here in 1912, fittingly called "Memphis Blues"... Beale Street was one of the first dedicated African-American cultural hubs and entertainment districts... Stax Records competed directly with Motown for a few years... "I am a Man" and the 1968 Sanitation Workers Strike... MLK... the movie "Shaft"... hell, Memphis was even one of the first cities outside of New York to develop it's own unique local hip hop style and culture. From the start Memphis has been an epicenter for all things black culture... BB King... Morgan Freeman... Otis Redding... Issac Hayes... Ike Turner... Reverend Al Green... and on and on...

I met a guy from Cameroon a while back, which was interesting in the sense that French and English are both official languages there, like in Canada. He could switch it up like a Montrealer. I wonder how the languages share space in Yaoundé and Douala.

I remember when Boyz n the Hood came out, a lot of the hip hop iconography then was very New York-centric, very tilted towards that sort of 80s South Bronx look, New Jack City, Juice. So I was surprised, after a few years of Eazy Duz It and Straight Outta Compton on the walkman, to see that this fabled Compton looked a lot like where my grandmother lived in Florida.

I mean, you watched a Das EFX or Naughty by Nature video back then, and it was basically like "the guys who make this music live underground" or something. Lots of crumbling brick walls and piles of rocks. I was like 12 and didn't know all that much about these US cities.

Likewise Esmeraldas, Ecuador. It's the center of Black culture in Ecuador and according to my husband who spent a lot of time there, the things you'll notice about Esmeraldas is that everyone is dancing there all the time, everyone is laughing there all the time, and the closest anyone there can manage to a whisper is a moderate bellow. It's a very busy, joyful place.

As a side note, I always thought the Moorish detailing peculiar to Detroit made kind of an interesting aesthetic backdrop, like Minister Farrakhan waiting in the tiled doorway of an apartment building on Cass Avenue for a meeting of Islamic scholars in parallel-universe Esfahan.