African American Music History

Product List
    • The Lives and Times of Sun Ra
    • By: John Szwed
    • Narrated by: Leon Nixon
    • Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
    • Release date: 11-09-21
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 29 ratings
    • Considered by many to be a founder of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra - a.k.a. Herman Blount - was a composer, keyboardist, bandleader, philosopher, entrepreneur, poet, and self-proclaimed extraterrestrial from Saturn....

    Regular price: $25.79 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $25.79 or 1 credit

    Included in Plus membership
    • The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound
    • By: Daphne A. Brooks
    • Narrated by: Janina Edwards
    • Length: 20 hrs and 26 mins
    • Release date: 05-24-22
    • Language: English
    • 3.5 out of 5 stars 3 ratings
    • Liner Notes for the Revolution offers a new perspective on acclaimed figures such as Aretha Franklin and Beyonce, who exist simultaneously at the center and on the fringe of the culture industry—a perspective informed by the overlooked contributions of other Black women....

    Regular price: $25.79 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $25.79 or 1 credit

    Included in Plus membership
    • A Captivating Guide to the People and Events that Shaped the History of the United States
    • By: Captivating History
    • Narrated by: Duke Holm
    • Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
    • Release date: 01-16-18
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 33 ratings
    • Explore captivating stories and facts about African American history! The history of African Americans is a long and tragic chronicle of events....

    Regular price: $14.95 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $14.95 or 1 credit

    • How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America
    • By: Larry Tye
    • Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
    • Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
    • Release date: 05-07-24
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 15 ratings
    • From the New York Times bestselling author of Satchel and Bobby Kennedy, a sweeping and spellbinding portrait of the longtime kings of jazz—Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie.

    Regular price: $25.19 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $25.19 or 1 credit

    • A Very Short Introduction
    • By: Jonathan Scott Holloway
    • Narrated by: Diontae Black
    • Length: 4 hrs and 10 mins
    • Release date: 02-21-23
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 1 rating
    • What does it mean to be an American? The story of the African American past demonstrates the difficulty of answering this seemingly simple question. This book illuminates the US's core paradoxes, inviting profound questions about what it means to be an American, a citizen, and a human being....

    Regular price: $11.17 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $11.17 or 1 credit

    • Notes in Praise of Black Performance
    • By: Hanif Abdurraqib
    • Narrated by: JD Jackson
    • Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
    • Release date: 03-30-21
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 238 ratings
    • MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow and best-selling author Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture....

    Regular price: $18.00 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $18.00 or 1 credit

    • The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound
    • By: Nelson George
    • Narrated by: Ron Butler
    • Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
    • Release date: 05-05-21
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 16 ratings
    • Nelson George's chronicle of Motown Records' rise and fall remains a classic account of an essential American music company and its dynamic founder, Berry Gordy Jr....

    Regular price: $19.95 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $19.95 or 1 credit

    • Searching for Tupac Shakur
    • By: Michael Eric Dyson
    • Narrated by: Cary Hite
    • Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
    • Release date: 06-29-11
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 353 ratings
    • Tupac Amaru Shakur (1971–1996) was an American rap artist, actor, and social activist....

    Regular price: $15.56 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $15.56 or 1 credit

    • By: Peter Benjaminson, Greil Macus - foreword
    • Narrated by: Sean Crisden
    • Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
    • Release date: 10-16-18
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 67 ratings
    • In January 1959, Berry Gordy borrowed $800 from his family and founded the Detroit-based record company that in less than a decade was to become the largest Black-owned business in the United States....

    Regular price: $21.49 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $21.49 or 1 credit

  • Regular price: $20.25 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $20.25 or 1 credit

  • Regular price: $21.49 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $21.49 or 1 credit

    • Slavery, Underground Railroad, People Including Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass and Rosa Parks (Black History Month, Book 1)
    • By: Adam Brown
    • Narrated by: Jim D. Johnston
    • Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
    • Release date: 05-12-20
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 1 rating
    • Discover the real truth behind African American history. You will be amazed to learn about some of the great African Americans and their legacies....

    Regular price: $11.69 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $11.69 or 1 credit

    • The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song
    • By: Judith Tick
    • Narrated by: Carmen Jewel Jones
    • Length: 19 hrs and 55 mins
    • Release date: 12-26-23
    • Language: English
    • 3.5 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
    • Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) possessed one of the twentieth century's most astonishing voices. Historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist....

    Regular price: $25.79 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $25.79 or 1 credit

    • By: Nelson George
    • Narrated by: Brandon Dirden
    • Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
    • Release date: 05-18-21
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 13 ratings
    • From Nelson George, supervising producer and writer of the hit Netflix series The Get Down, this passionate and provocative book tells the complete story of Black music in the last 50 years....

    Regular price: $19.95 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $19.95 or 1 credit

    • Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War
    • By: Penny M. Von Eschen
    • Narrated by: Christina Delaine
    • Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
    • Release date: 07-10-18
    • Language: English
    • 4 out of 5 stars 8 ratings
    • At the height of the ideological antagonism of the Cold War, the US State Department unleashed an unexpected tool in its battle against Communism: jazz. From 1956 through the late 1970s, America dispatched its finest jazz musicians to the far corners of the earth....

    Regular price: $17.19 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $17.19 or 1 credit

    • How "Dancing in the Street" Became the Anthem for a Changing America
    • By: Mark Kurlansky
    • Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
    • Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
    • Release date: 07-11-13
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 11 ratings
    • Ready for a Brand New Beat chronicles that extraordinary summer of 1964 and showcases the momentous role that a simple song about dancing played in history....

    Regular price: $15.47 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $15.47 or 1 credit

    Included in Plus membership
    • By: Yona Zeldis McDonough
    • Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
    • Length: 53 mins
    • Release date: 03-26-19
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 14 ratings
    • If not for a stint in reform school, young Louis Armstrong might never have become a musician. It was a teacher at the Colored Waifs' Home who gave him a cornet, promoted him to band leader, and saw talent in the tough kid from the even tougher New Orleans neighborhood called Storyville....

    Regular price: $6.29 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $6.29 or 1 credit

    • Dave and Iola Brubeck and Louis Armstrong Challenge Segregation
    • By: Keith Hatschek
    • Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
    • Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
    • Release date: 08-16-22
    • Language: English
    • 2 out of 5 stars 1 rating
    • Keith Hatschek tells the story of three determined artists: Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Iola Brubeck and the stand they took against segregation by writing and performing a jazz musical titled The Real Ambassadors....

    Regular price: $21.49 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $21.49 or 1 credit

    Included in Plus membership
    • By: Norma Miller, Evette Jensen
    • Narrated by: Bettye Zoller Seitz
    • Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
    • Release date: 07-28-14
    • Language: English
    • 4 out of 5 stars 16 ratings
    • Dancer, award-winning choreographer, show producer, stand-up comedienne, TV/film actress, and author, Norma Miller shares her touching historical memoir....

    Regular price: $19.95 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $19.95 or 1 credit

  • Regular price: $19.95 or 1 credit

    Sale price: $19.95 or 1 credit