From Jazz to Rap. From Mechanical to Digital Reproduction of American Black Music

Abstract

This paper explores the shift from the mechanical reproduction to the digital reproduction era, specifically in North-American popular music. The paper relies on concepts and ideas from the Frankfurt School, specifically from Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin’s works on the music industry. By using their ideas as a starting point and as an interpretative framework, the nexus between musical manifestations is discussed, as well as technological and structural change. American popular music (specifically jazz and rap) and the record industry that emerged around it, are used as a good example of the incorporation of African American music to mechanical reproduction, and with the emergence of rap, of the shift to the era of digitally reproduced music.