NYU Black Renaissance Noire Summer/Fall 2010 | Page 5

“My Take”
Fall 2010 Black Renaissance Noire

by QUINCY TROUPE

For nearly a century, from roughly 1920
until the present day, 2010, European-Americans
and Europeans have been copying or imitating
the cultural productions, styles and various forms
of African-Americans, Africans and other people
of color without acknowledging in public
this was in fact taking place.

I

n the United States

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this phenomena can be documented
and veri?ed by how much EuropeanAmericans “borrowed” from all the
great cultural creations — the “lindy
hop” dance, the great music, fashion, art,
the hip use of language and poetry —
that came from the womb of Harlem
in the 1920s. All of this exerted an
immense in?uence over the arts, styles,
fashion, use of language and music that
emanated from European-Americans
and Europeans over the years. They just
“borrowed” it and made it their own
through their control of mass media
and no one in Harlem has ever been
given proper credit for their innovations
and contributions to the broader
American cultural scene.
Where would American music and
culture be today without the genius of
Louis Armstrong, Ma Rainey, Fletcher
Henderson, Bessie Smith, the brilliance
of Josephine Baker in Paris, and other
great Black performers and musicians
during the 1920’s? And later, what
would America have been without the
utter brilliance of Duke Ellington, Art
Tatum, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton,
Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Blind
Lemon Je?erson, Robert Johnson, Erroll
Garner, Billy Eckstine, Coleman
Hawkins, Nat King Cole, Bud Powell,
Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk,
Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, Katherine
Dunham, or the creative ?amboyance
and inventiveness of Cab Calloway and
so many, ma