The Hidden Innovation of the African-American Banjo

Inspired by the hidden history of the banjo, and how country music in the USA came from African-American enslaved peoples.

As part of our uncrecognized inventors series we are looking at the hidden history of the American Banjo and the enormous influence of African-Americans on past and contemporary bluegrass and country music. Just like many cool things, the black experience in country music has been completely erased. 

Today we encounter very few people who know that the banjo was invented by slaves and rarely played by white Americans until the late 19th century when blackface and minstrel shows became popular with white Americans. It’s also eye-opening that the mentors of many of the earliest recorded country musicians in the United States were black, but their history has been almost completely erased! 

Since the probably inventors of the banjo were enslaved people, their names are lost to history, but there’s a wonderful moment by African-Americans and American studies in general to recover the history of the banjo.

Here talented musical goddess Rhiannon Giddens goes over the banjo’s history in a course “From African Roots to American Music”:

What’s fascinating to us is how we are able to piece together a history of an instrument borne out of cruelty and forced migration.

What’s neat is how she goes over the geographies as well, how this instrument came to exist through cruel forced migration, and it is also a testament to people’s will to survive and seek solace in music.

A map from the lecture of possible (Depressing) trade routes that enabled the banjo’s invention (video)

Documentaries and critical analysis of American history not only show us hidden truths about American history but are totally enlightening and crucial to helping us understand what it means to be American.

Hopefully these new discoveries will also inspire this generation of American musicians and producers to help reclaim country music and make it even more fabulous! Now that people know that the true birth of country music is mostly black music, just imagine what cool music lays ahead.

We had all sorts of ideas seeing this scholarship, but in the upcoming year of 2025, how can we create music studios and encourage interweaving of history with technology, especially as crypto makes its unpleasant comeback (ha ha) and recent events casts a dark shadow on art and music in the United States.

  • How can we uncover more hidden histories?
  • Inspire country music to innovate and shine with new groups of people?
  • Enable cool musical performances, especially during our busiest night, hardware hack night!!!!
  • Encourage the invention of cool new musical instruments?

There are so many possibilities, and since SudoRoom is a place full of so many smart and creative people, let’s see what we can do for 2025!