Steampacket wrote:I'm with oleorezinator regarding this sampling rubbish.
"I like that it speaks to the complicated interplay of African American and irish traditions in the US., which is less well known than it should be. Thousands of African American in the US trace their families back to ireland: its extremely common. Interestingly, I'm actually a back man in the state in which I reside. it's a comical and startling story of hw an immigrant from Donegal got to be a black man: http://theaporetic.com/?p=54" PB+J
What complicated interplay between African American and Irish traditions?
The link you gave PB+J was interesting in that it revealed an evil racism resident in the U.S. towards people of African descent that rivalled that of Nazi Germany's attitude towards Jewish people
How did so many African Americans get irish surnames? It's not because paddy from the bog bought slaves. Im sure Irish immigrants did end up buying slaves, but not in large numbers. By 1850 a "prime" field hand cost roughly $60,000-70,000 modern dollars. Why were african American often described as playing jigs? Why is it tap dancing, understood as an african American art form in the US, and irish dancing both involve striking the floor to produce percussive effects?
The grotesque history of segregation in the US does its work in many ways, including obscuring the things different people shared. I'm not arguing for some kind of utopian history, but I am arguing that african Americans and irish people lived in close proximity and there was a great deal of cultural exchanged, much of which enduring present day racism still serves to obscure. Note this is not a novel or extreme position among historians of the US.
So a rap that incorporates a jig seems to me to be historically reasonable. Check out the Carolina Chocolate Drops as a band that sees the intersection clearly