From Griots to the Last Poets

From Phillis Wheatley

            to Gwendolyn Brooks.

From highly imitative        

            to Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry.

From Various Subjects, Religious and Moral

            to Annie Allen.

From Zora Neale Hurston

            to Toni Morrison.

From Their Eyes Were Watching God

            to Paradise.

From folklore

            to Nobel Laureate fiction.

From Mules and Men

            to Beloved.

From Richard Wright

            to James Baldwin

            to Walter Mosley.

From Native Son

            to “Sonny’s Blues”

            to A Devil in a Blue Dress.

From the Royal Family –

Count Basie, Duke Ellington

and Nat King Cole

            to the King of Pop.

From a Lady singing the blues

            to the Funky Divas.

From the Queen of Soul

            to Queen Latifah.

From Bojangles

            to M.C. Hammer

            to the Tap Dance Kid.

From Porgy and Bess

            to Jelly’s Last Jam.

From slave songs and spirituals

            to soul.

From delta blues

            to rhythm and blues.

From New Orleans jazz

            to Brass Construction.

From ragtime

            to rock ‘n’ roll

            to rap.

The gift of story and song.