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Comment by uhoh-itsmaciek | Hacker News Reader

American country music has been heavily influenced by African Americans since the beginning (often without recognition, though that's starting to change.) The banjo is based on African instruments, and many musicians like Huddie Ledbetter, Elizabeth Cotten, Mississippi John Hurt, Arnold Shultz, and DeFord Bailey helped shape the genre. It's great to see this popularity in Africa--in a weird way, it's almost like coming full circle.

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Maybe there was some cross pollination but the progenitors of country were the hillbilly folk music now now as bluegrass that is rooted in English, Scottish and Irish folk music. Banjos were adopted later, the original form was fiddle based.

All of the above. Country is heavily influenced by African American gospel and blues, but also the hillbilly roots you described. It's a fusion genre and that's beautiful.

But the "stolen without attribution" claim paints it negatively for little reason.

African Americans contributed; nothing was "stolen," as romantic of an idea to the chronically-oppressed may oppose.

I pick banjo and I've never heard anyone claim the banjo was "stolen". Especially not in this thread.

No one said stolen. Both GPs used the term influenced.

IIRC from a book I read on the blues, banjos had some early traction in and were introduced by blues music because they were indeed derived from West African instruments (built around gourds, complete with one shorter string like a banjo has) but the updated, new-world construction of the modern banjo (twangy, poor sustain) was better-suited to accompanying higher-pitched white voices, so ended up falling out of favor in the blues about the same time it was becoming standard in genres like bluegrass.

There is a lot of cross pollination of music genres in the US: "But the general consensus is that jazz is an American invention, born in New Orleans, Louisiana from the influences of traditional American work songs and French cajun instrumentation, including the standup bass, the Dixieland drum kit, and particularly, the cornet, an instrument invented in France in the 1820s similar to the trumpet."

From: https://moviewise.substack.com/p/a-short-history-of-jazz-in-...

I wouldn't worry about it not being recognized. Much of artistic inspiration is not attributed, as cross pollination is the norm. Once an artist makes something, it ceases to be theirs and becomes its own creation. Most of the time artists don't even realize where their inspiration comes from.

With the genres I'm familiar with there's clearly a lot of cross pollination between ethnic groups in the US and it's very hard to tell who "started it".

I feel pretty strongly that with music - disparate influences makes it better. Or maybe I just say that because I like detroit techno...

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