Black Atlantic Culture

•  Paul Gilroy proposes that the modern black experience can not be defined solely as African or American or Carribean or British alone, but can only be understood as a Black Atlantic culture that transcends any ethnicity or nationality
• This condition comes out of historical transoceanic experience, established first with the slave trade but later seen in the development of a transatlantic culture. And Gilroy takes us on a tour of the music that, for centuries, has transmitted its racial messages and feeling around the world, from the Jubilee Singers in the nineteenth century to jazz and Jimi Hendrix to funk and house and rap. 
• Countries around the Atlantic have been shaped by movement -The slave trade has shaped an identity of Black people.
• This is not just one identity - Those who were victims of the slave trade have a different identity to those who were not involved.
• Unifying aspects to Black atlantic culture, but they are not the same
• Black Atlantic culture is about shared experiences rather than race or ethnicity
• Gilroy argues that there is no such thing as 'black' music because it is too diverse
• Music is used to transmit cultural values across the Atlantic
• Gilroy argues that there is no such thing as 'black' music because it is always mixed up with other cultures
• Race is a social construct which changes over time
• Music can be used to express resistance against oppression
• African slaves brought their own musical traditions with them when taken from Africa to America
• The term 'race' was invented by Europeans to justify their domination of non-European peoples
• The black diaspora has been able to create new forms of art by mixing together elements from their own culture and others
• The term black diaspora refers to people who have been forced from their homeland by slavery, colonialism or imperialism