African American Music Appreciation Month: Cannabis in the Culture

Since the first enslaved Africans arrived on Turtle Island, in 1619, their captors tried to douse the flames of their ancestral music. Enslaved people from western and central Africa brought unique vocal styles and created instruments including the banjo, drums, and shakers. While entertaining and uplifting; singing, playing instruments, and dancing was not solely for recreational purposes.

Spirituals kept morale high in the fields, while sharing news including codes and maps. Spirituals are the precursor to the blues, jazz, and even rap. June’s African American Music Appreciation Month raises awareness of the contributions Black artists have made to music in the United States. Though the use of cannabis plays a small part in some genres it has been impactful artistically and politically.

Originating in the southern United States in the early 1900s, jazz is known for its improvisation, polyrhythms, and call and response. New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, and New York City became synonymous with jazz. It was played at rent parties, speakeasies, brothels, and some whites only clubs. Often, speakeasies allowed races to mix beyond the extremes of segregation. Musicians and patrons alike partook in dancing, drinking, and drugs. Cannabis was popular among musicians of the day, and singers including Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong—who touted its health benefits—and Billie Holiday.

As the popularity of jazz rose, so did scrutiny from clergy, politicians, and government officials. After the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, Harry J. Anslinger’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) targeted Black jazz musicians. Billie Holiday was surveilled and smeared by the FBN. On brand with the hypocrisy of the government, cannabis connoisseur, jazz singer, and pianist, Fats Waller’s “If You’re a Viper”—which recounted the highs and lows of cannabis—was included on a morale boosting album for U.S. soldiers during WWII.

Flash forward to the emergence of hip hop in the late 1970s, in The Bronx. Created by African Americans, Afro Caribbeans, and Afro Latinos, hip hop picked up where jazz left off with a major component of the art––rap. Rap uses similar storytelling methods, call and response, and at times samples jazz. Rappers including Styles P (“Good Times (I Get High)”), Snoop Dogg (“Gin and Juice”), Missy Elliot (“Pass That Dutch”), OutKast (“Crumblin’ Herb”), Wiz Khalifa (“Young, Wild & Free”), and Red Man featuring Method Man (“How High”) spin popular tales of heady cannabis use. The irony is thick now that cannabis is part of a legal landscape. Cannabis is a high grossing industry, while many Black and Latine men are still imprisoned for its use, possession, or sale.

It took 21 years for African American Music Appreciation Month to be fully recognized by the government of the U.S. Black Music Association co-founders, producer Kenneth Gamble and entertainment executive Ed Wright each played a key role in the creation of the heritage month honoring the contributions of African Americans in music. In June 1979, President Jimmy Carter declared June would be recognized as Black Music Month. However, it wasn’t until the year 2000 when activist, broadcaster, and House Concurrent Bill 509 co-author Dyana Williams, and all Americans would see “the contributions of African American music as a viable cultural and economic entity” recognized by Congress. In 2009 President Barack Obama changed the name of the heritage month to African American Music Appreciation Month.

Cannabis in music has become so mainstream, thanks to African American artists, that one can purchase a cannabis leaf plushie that plays Afroman’s “Because I Got High” at a chain store. Whether jazz or rap, African Americans have left an indelible mark on music and cannabis culture.