TRANSPARENT WINDOWS (ON SITE @ ROOM 112 old building)
You're cordially invited to the CREATIVE WORKSHOP to be held on April 22, 2026 @ 14:00-15:30.
Workshop Title: The Musical Roots of American Popular Culture
Speaker: Donnetrice Allison (Professor and Chair in Africana Studies; Stockton U, US)
Language of the event: English.
REGISTRATION
To register, please click on this link and fill in your information.
Certificates of attendance will be provided upon request. See the registration form.
ABSTRACT
This workshop explores how Black music—from the Blues to Hip Hop—has served as the foundation of American popular music and culture. Beginning with the spirituals and work songs of enslaved Africans, this interaction workshop will demonstrate the emergence of the Blues as both a sonic innovation and a cultural testimony of survival, migration, and modernity. From there, it will demonstrate how Blues structures shaped Jazz improvisation, Rhythm and Blues, and eventually Rock and Roll, influencing artists and industries across racial and national lines. The workshop highlights how genres rooted in Black communities—Gospel, Soul, Funk, and later Hip Hop—have consistently generated new musical forms, aesthetic styles, and political vocabularies. It also demonstrates how sampling, DJ culture, and lyricism in Hip Hop extend longstanding African diasporic traditions of call-and-response, storytelling, and rhythmic experimentation. Alongside musical analysis, the workshop will address issues of appropriation, commercialization, and cultural ownership, demonstrating how Black creativity has often been exploited even as it has defined mainstream taste. Ultimately, participants in this workshop will come to understand that American popular culture— its sound, fashion, language, and social movements—cannot be understood without centering Black musical innovation as its driving force and enduring creative engine.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Dr. Donnetrice Allison is professor of Communication Studies and coordinator of Africana Studies at Stockton University. Among other courses, she teaches “African American Movies,” “African Americans on Television” and “Women, Minorities and the Media.” Dr. Allison is the editor of the book 'Black Women's Portrayals on Reality Television: The New Sapphire' and writer and co-producer of the film 'Teaching While Black.'
