race music

American  

noun

Older Use.

1. blues-based music or jazz by and for African Americans in the 1920s and 1930s, when it was regarded as a distinctive, separate market by the music industry; early jazz or rhythm-and-blues.

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Etymology

Origin of race music

An Americanism dating back to 1925–30

Example Sentences

"I grew up in real poverty, working class, and mixed race; music lessons were never a thing," she says.

From BBC • Sep. 15, 2021

They called it race music, rhythm and blues music.

From Fox News • Aug. 16, 2019

In tracking the life of the funk music titan for this nonfiction book, Mr. McBride found a more complex story about race, music and the South.

From New York Times • Mar. 31, 2016

And before pulling Beck’s name from the album of the year envelope, pop icon Prince made a passing remark about race, music and education that spoke volumes: “Like books and black lives, albums still matter.”

From Washington Post • Feb. 8, 2015

Music alone lagged in the race, music, part speech, part painting, with a surging undertow of passion, music had been too long in the laboratories of the wise men.

From Melomaniacs by Huneker, James