Black Music Month was based by a bunch of music business luminaries to rejoice the contributions of Black music to American tradition: songwriter and producer, Kenneth Gamble, journalist and neighborhood activist, Dyana Williams, and DJ Ed Wright. Gamble was impressed to create Black Music Month after witnessing the influence of Nation Music Month, and fashioned the Black Music Affiliation to steer the hassle. In June 1979, President Jimmy Carter hosted the primary Black Music Month celebration on the White Home Garden. Pathbreaking radio host Dyana Williams lobbied to senators and congress individuals for years earlier than the observance was formally acknowledged by a proclamation by President Invoice Clinton in 2000.
Once we take into consideration Black music — Blues, Jazz, Rock, Hip Hop, and many others, metropolises with well-known contributions like Detroit, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New Orleans, naturally come to thoughts. Properly, this daring southern metropolis has its personal historical past of musical affect, so maybe it’s time we add Duval to the combination. In honor of Black Music Month, right here’s a quick historical past of Black music making and reminiscence from an area lens.
James Weldon Johnson (heart) with good friend Bob Cole (left) and brother Rosamond (proper)
Could we ceaselessly stand
True to our God
True to our homeland
—James Weldon Johnson, Carry Ev’ry Voice and Sing (1900)
Following the abolishment of legalized slavery, Black communities sought development within the midst of the state violence and discrimination that outlined the Jim Crow period. James Weldon Johnson was certainly one of Jacksonville’s brave leaders within the African American neighborhood who rose to nationwide affect. A dynamic and multi-talented chief, Johnson served as each a area secretary and ultimately govt secretary for the NAACP and principal at his alma mater, the Stanton College.
In February 1900, Johnson was approached by a bunch of neighborhood members who needed to prepare a celebration for Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Johnson initially deliberate to write down a poem about Lincoln, however the artistic journey quickly impressed one thing a lot broader and deeper: the well-known hymn Carry Ev’ry Voice and Sing. Johnson penned the lyrics for the track and his brother, gifted composer John Rosamond Johnson, set the lyrics to music.
James Weldon Johnson at his writing desk. Picture courtesy of the Alliance for Networking Visible Tradition.
Johnson wrote about his expertise creating the track in his autobiography Alongside This Manner. The primary line, “Carry ev’ry voice and sing,” got here simply, and he then set to work ending the stanza. When these traces got here to him, he realized “the spirit of the poem had taken maintain of me”:
Sing a track stuffed with the religion that the darkish previous has taught us
Sing a track stuffed with the hope that the current has introduced us
By the third stanza, Johnson discovered himself in a poetic euphoria, weeping as he crafted the traces. “Feverish ecstasy was adopted by that contentment – that sense of serene pleasure – which makes creative creation probably the most full of all human experiences,” he wrote. With vivid parallels to the Biblical story of Exodus, “Carry Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” tapped into the custom and pathos of negro spirituals, which enslaved individuals used to specific sorrow, hope, and religion sooner or later.
After its first efficiency by 500 faculty kids at Stanton, Jacksonville’s Black kids performed a important function in spreading the track throughout the nation, a legacy Johnson treasured: “The schoolchildren of Jacksonville stored singing the track; a few of them went on to different faculties and stored singing it; some grew to become faculty academics and taught it to their pupils,” he wrote. “Nothing that I’ve achieved has paid me again so totally in satisfaction as being half creator of this track.”
The Johnson brothers’ hymn impressed Northeast Florida sculptor Augusta Savage’s masterpiece, The Harp, also referred to as Carry Each Voice and Sing. The plaster model of the piece was displayed on the New York World’s Truthful in 1939, however Savage wasn’t in a position to increase funds to solid it in bronze and it was demolished on the finish of the honest. Picture courtesy of the New York Public Library.
The Nationwide Affiliation of Membership Ladies promoted the track and the NAACP adopted it as its official track in 1919. In her e-book Could We Without end Stand scholar Imani Perry identifies “Carry Ev’ry Voice and Sing” as an instrument of Black identification, political consciousness, ritual making, neighborhood constructing and associational life. American historical past scholar and Occidental Faculty professor Erica Ball illuminates Perry’s classes in Could We Without end Stand in noting the roles that members of Black associations and Black college students within the segregated faculties of the South performed in cementing the track in reminiscence. Black establishments, faculties, and church buildings had been the areas that the Civil Rights Motion grew out of. Singing “Carry Ev’ry Voice and Sing” every day reminded each singers and listeners of their very own historic energy, religion, and perseverance.
Arthur “Blind” Blake, blues and ragtime musician, was one of many outstanding figures of early twentieth century music with Jacksonville ties.
All my life I’ve been a travelin’ man,
Stayin’ alone and doin’ the perfect I can
—Arthur “Blind” Blake, Police Canine Blues (1929)
Within the early twentieth century, Jacksonville’s LaVilla neighborhood was burgeoning with artistic and creative life. With a roughly 70 p.c Black inhabitants, LaVilla was house to thriving Black-owned companies, quite a few theaters, night time golf equipment, and juke joints that may ultimately grow to be stops alongside the Chitlin’ Circuit and a wealthy music scene. Apparently, LaVilla’s renaissance period predates and helped encourage Harlem’s, which is extensively thought of to have began within the Twenties. A number of Jacksonville historical past makers, together with the Johnson brothers, Zora Neale Hurston, and Augusta Savage, had been additionally figures within the Harlem Renaissance after transferring to New York Metropolis in 1901, 1925, and 1921, respectively.
Johnnie Woods and Little Henry from the Indianapolis Freeman, January 26, 1918.
Blues music originated within the late nineteenth century within the Mississippi Delta and because it unfold throughout the American South it grew to become a key a part of the LaVilla scene. The first account of blues singing on a public stage occurred in LaVilla, when Professor Johnnie Woods, a ventriloquist, faucet dancer, and drag performer took the stage on the Coloured Airdome Theatre, stated to have been the most important theatres for African People within the South. Woods’ efficiency was reported by the Indianapolis Freeman: “[Woods] set the Airdome wild by making Little Henry drunk… he makes use of the ‘blues’ for Little Henry on this drunken act.”
Different Blues musicians with ties to Jacksonville embody Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Arthur “Blind” Blake, Ray Charles, and Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson of the Allman Brothers Band.
Hurston labored for the WPA, accumulating folklife and folklore from Floridians all through the state. She is pictured right here in Eatonville with Rochelle French listening to Gabriel Brown taking part in guitar. Picture Courtesy of Florida Reminiscence.
The Blues was born out of earlier musical types like work songs and area hollers. In 1939, Zora Neale Hurston labored for the Federal Writers Venture to gather tales, songs, traditions, and folklore amongst Florida’s Black rural and dealing class communities. Hurston’s workplace was based mostly on the Clara White Mission, a LaVilla landmark, the place she organized a recording session with on a regular basis neighborhood members to protect the songs. You may take heed to them right here.
Blues music was not too long ago spotlit in Ryan Coogler’s enthralling thriller Sinners, as a robust storytelling system on an extended continuum of musical traditions, remixes, and innovations throughout the African diaspora. As a sort of people music with a robust emphasis on storytelling, Blues is a progenitor to different genres like Hip Hop and R&B. Zora Neale Hurston scholar and creator Rae Chesny makes a captivating connection between the strategy Hurston took whereas conducting her fieldwork and the facility of music as a belief builder and unifying pressure, or in different phrases, a vibe verify. In response to Chesny, Zora knew find out how to be ready to interview and document individuals. She didn’t simply ask questions, she introduced devices and carried out together with residents, incomes their belief and their tales.
Cowl of Quad Metropolis DJ’s’ 1996 album Get On Up and Dance.
When you really feel like dancing, effectively come on, it’s as much as you.
—Quad Metropolis DJs, C’Mon n’ Journey It (The Prepare) (1996)
Any time-traveling tour of Duval’s music scene could be incomplete with out exploring the town’s contributions to hip-hop music and tradition. For a style with traditions of sampling and remixes, hip-hop is all the time in reflective dialog with historical past, even current historical past. Extensively thought of to be hip-hop’s golden period, the late Eighties and ‘90s produced numerous kinds of hip-hop music, highlighting the variety in content material, sound, and regional flavors throughout the style. Florida’s most outstanding regional sound on this interval was the party-centric subgenre generally known as Miami bass, which got here to nationwide consideration in no small half due to Jacksonville’s hip-hop scene.
Miami bass originated in Miami’s Black neighborhoods within the mid-Eighties as a result of pioneers like Uncle Luke and a couple of Stay Crew. Characterised by excessively low bass traces, dance-ready rhythms and lyrics largely about intercourse and partying, by the late 80s the sound had caught on in Central Florida, Jacksonville and Atlanta. Jacksonville produced a sequence of interconnected teams, all involving the identical manufacturing group of Johnny “Jay Ski” McGowan and Nathaniel “C.C. Lemonhead” Orange, who helped to solidify Florida’s place on hip-hop’s map.
Jay Ski and Lemonhead realized they may take Miami bass music to new heights of recognition in the event that they toned down the vulgar lyrics and turned up the manufacturing values. Forming a partnership finally generally known as Quad Metropolis DJ’s (“quad” being 90s Florida slang for bass), they first made music along with the Chill Deal Boyz, who launched one EP in 1991. In 1993, Jay Ski and Lemonhead assembled a brand new group, 95 South, who had a High-10 single with “Whoot! There it Is”, which predated the equally named “Whoomp! (There It Is)” by Atlanta group Tag Staff, by a month. After the vocalists departed, Jay Ski and Lemonhead fashioned a brand new group, 69 Boyz, who had an excellent larger hit in 1994 with “Tootsie Roll.” In 1995, the 2 produced the hit single “Freak Me Child” for Dis-n-Dat, a sister duo from Atlanta.
In 1996, Jay Ski and Lemonhead added vocalist JeLana LeFleur to launch music beneath their very own Quad Metropolis DJ’s moniker. the Quad Metropolis DJ’s made their mark with the 1996 megahit “C’mon N Journey It (The Prepare)”, and their platinum album Get On Up and Dance featured different bangers like “Work Child Work” and “Summer season Jam.” One other hit adopted that yr when Quad Metropolis DJ’s created the theme track to the animated film House Jam.
Quad Metropolis DJ’s.
Teams like Quad Metropolis DJs and 69 Boyz made music that was excessive vitality and danceable, with maybe simply sufficient edge to stay radio pleasant. Their tracks may very well be heard at a cookout, faculty dance, or Skate Station. It was additionally round this time that Duval’s well-known chant began to make waves. DJ Everette “Straightforward E” Eason is credited with popularizing the “Duuuval” chant by utilizing it as a radio drop after listening to it within the streets. He and DJ Tee Roy additionally began utilizing it at golf equipment and occasions round Florida. The trailblazing radio personalities of 92.7 FM The Beat (now 93.3) instructed ESPN in regards to the chant’s origins in 2023, explaining that it was a manner for them to inform individuals and rejoice the place they had been from. Utilizing the mantra on the radio allowed them to achieve the complete state of Florida, spreading the mantra past Jacksonville.
The sounds of Quad Metropolis DJs, 69 Boyz, and different Miami bass pioneers served as a precursor to the lighthearted, melodic jams delivered by Florida’s greatest rap stars within the early 2000s, from T-Ache to Plies. The legacy of these J-Ville forerunners has continued in artists like Entice Beckham, J-Sprint, and Lil Duval.
Complete Wheat Bread band members pose in entrance of the downtown Jacksonville skyline. Picture courtesy of Complete Wheat Bread.
The phrase’s on the road and it’s on the information,
I’m not gonna educate him find out how to dance with you.
—Black Youngsters, I’m Not Gonna Train Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You (2007)
There was a time when the faces of rock music appeared very homogeneous. This will nonetheless be the case in mainstream music business and tradition, however due to the work of academic and cultural organizations like Afro Punk, the understanding of rock music’s deep ties to Black communities is beginning to develop.
One rock band with roots in Duval is Complete Wheat Bread. Fashioned in 2003 by Jacksonville natives Aaron Abraham, Nicholas Largen, and Joseph Largen, WWB has been influential within the metropolis’s punk scene as “a grimy south punk rock band,” as they state on their Fb web page. Although WWB had not skilled the business success of different Jax Rock teams like Yellow Card or Pink Jumpsuit Equipment, a fast web search uncovers a permanent fandom as people on social media and different on-line boards reminisce over spectacular reside performances and early album jams. WWB launched their debut album “Minority Guidelines” in 2005. The album’s tone is filled with youthful, existential angst whereas exploring matters like substance abuse, psychological well being, and harrowing police encounters, which stay nearly hauntingly related.
A few of Complete Wheat Bread’s hottest data embrace the connection between Rock and Rap with mashups of raging guitar riffs and hypnotizing beats, just like the early 2000s knocker “Killas,” which was a standout monitor on Lil Jon’s 2010 album Crunk Rock, and “By no means Scared,” a daring cowl of Grasp P’s basic. As WWB made their mark, the band was intentional in representing their hometown from the beginning. Abraham instructed The Florida Occasions-Union that they adopted the DUUUVAL chant and referenced Jacksonville in every album cowl.
Black Youngsters band member Reggie Youngblood performing. Picture courtesy of Jacksonville Music Expertise
One other homegrown band has a reputation that will sound literal however seemingly has layers of that means, is Black Youngsters. Although typically described as an indie rock or different band, Black Youngsters’ music doesn’t match neatly into any conventional class. The multicultural band is made up of brother and sister Reggie and Ali Youngblood, Daybreak Watley, Kevin Snow, and Owen Holmes, and gained a following within the early 2000s via spectacular reside reveals and the thrill of early web hubs like MySpace. In 2008 Black Youngsters dropped their album “Partie Traumatic,” which featured groovy melodies and witty, earnest lyrics.
The Jacksonville Music Expertise notes that Pitchfork ranked BK’s standout single “I’m Not Going to Train Your Boyfriend The best way to Dance With You” the 68th greatest track of 2007 (for context: M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” landed at #4.) Although the band has gone via an extended hiatus, BK has began releasing new music in recent times and carried out within the 2023 Corona Capital annual music competition in Mexico Metropolis. BK dropped a brand new EP in April 2025 referred to as Cemetery Lips.
Black musicians have continued making waves in Jacksonville’s indie rock scene. Different examples embody LANNDS, an electro-pop duo made based in Jacksonville by Rania Woodard and Brian Squillace, and Yuno, an eclectic indie pop songwriter who launched his first full size album on Subpop in 2025.
Jacksonville’s Black historical past is a reminder of music’s profound energy to deliver individuals collectively, whether or not it’s to inform our tales, to combat for a standard trigger, to attach via shared reminiscence and expertise, or to simply dance and have a great time. And expertise continues to emerge from the town. Extra artists that decision Jacksonville house embody Jackie Moore, Marthaniel Roberts, Alja “KaMillion” Jackson, Glenn Jones, and Jahaan Candy, amongst many others. Music has performed a significant function in serving to Jacksonville form and uncover its identification. For Jax locals, the music additionally serves as a supply of delight and inspiration and, like historical past, there’s all the time extra to be uncovered.
Article by Sytonia Reid, Ennis Davis and Invoice Delaney. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com and Invoice at wdelaney@moderncities.com. Sytonia Reid is a really proud Jax native, Howard College alumna, time traveler, and storykeeper.