Episode 231

The Dirt Sings the Blues

It's another sponsored episode! Anna takes Amber through a short history of the blues, specifically as one of the many musical genres to come out of the African diaspora. We start by learning about the clave, which is both an instrument and a rhythm. Then, we wander through a little history, before Anna hauls out a guitar and tries to remember how scales work. What is a blue note? Was there really a deal with the devil at a crossroads? Is a hotdog without a bun just a hotdog? All this and more!

Subscribe to our back catalog of bonus content (fresh helpings coming January 2024) for $5 a month after a one-week free trial at: https://the-dirt-podcast.captivate.fm/support

Learn more at:

The Story of Claves– from Spanish Ships to Today's Cuban bands (KCRW)

Son Clave 3-2 & 2-3 (watch & learn) (via Youtube)

What Is A Griot? (America’s Black Holocaust Museum)

The Language of the Blues: GRIOT (American Blues Scene)

Muslim roots of the blues: The music of famous American blues singers reaches back through the South to the culture of West Africa (SFGate)

Roots of African American Music (Smithsonian)

Blues (Britannica)

What is the blues? (PBS)

The Painful Birth of Blues and Jazz (Library of Congress)

The Livelihoods of Traditional Griots in Modern Senegal (Africa: Journal of the International African Institute)

The Music of West Africa


Next Episode All Episodes Previous Episode

About the Podcast

Show artwork for The Dirt Podcast
The Dirt Podcast
Archaeology, Anthropology, and our shared human past.

Listen for free

About your host

Profile picture for The Dirt Podcast

The Dirt Podcast

As science communicators in anthropology and archaeology, we hosts of The Dirt acknowledge that we hold a position of considerable privilege and opportunity, and commit ourselves to continuous learning, unlearning and reflection. We recognize that our disciplines, as well as our own lives, are rooted in and propped up by settler colonialism, white supremacy, and dispossession.

We now reside on the stolen ancestral territory of the Shawnee and Haudenosaunee and on the lands of the Muscogee and Cherokee Nations, but over its lifetime, The Dirt has also been produced on the unceded traditional territory of the Piscataway Conoy and Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians, as well as that of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, Patwin and Miwok peoples and all those dispossessed by Cession 296. We offer our show as a platform for Indigenous scholarship, history, and cultural expression, through citation and conversation, and we welcome the opportunity to host and compensate Indigenous scholars of archaeology and anthropology as interview guests.

Likewise, we encourage all listeners who reside in settler-colonial states to learn about on whose land they reside, their place in the ongoing process of colonization, and how to contribute materially to reparations and Indigenous sovereignty.