Sad but unsurprising that you have this many dislikes on the video. This was a ton of fun to contribute to. Thanks for letting me be a part of it.

Jimi Hendrix's death was probably one of the biggest changes to rock history. Imagine if he hadn't died and joined the then forming ELP. I think progrock would've been an entirely different genre,

This is a great video. However, I think it disregards the fact that Zeppelin, just like The Beatles, The Who and Rolling Stones, were British. Not to say the British society of the 50s and 60s were not racists towards Black peoples, but black music was more widely distributed to working class children. The Beatles did not cover little Richard or Chuck Berry because they wanted to white wash rock n' roll but because they, just like so many other great British rock bands, genuinely loved and admired those artists and they always made that very clear. It is how art evolves, you start by "stealing" from people you admire and with time you develop your own style. The foundations of The Rain Song, Stairway To Heaven and The Song Remains The Same can for sure be drawn from blues and jazz, but it is original nonetheless.

Little Richard's pain was not only rooted that he was black man in the mid-20th Century American South, his pain also had to do with his being a poly-sexual being from an evangelical background. Led Zeppelin, and the Beatles, Rolling Stones etc. came from a very class structured society and the blues part of rock & roll/rhythm & blues spoke to their lower class status in that society (they were not American) - the celtic roots of country music, which fused with the blues to create these genres between Appalachia and Missippi Delta in the 20's, 30's and 40's to create American Rock & Roll - on their first American tours Zeppelin frequently covered Rock-A-Billy artist Johnny Burnette & the Rock & Roll Trio's "Train Kept A Rockin'" - I have never heard anyone accuse Johnny Burnette of cultural appropriation, although he appropriated an equal amount from race records as Louis Jordan appropriated from Country & Western artists like Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys. One of the big "threats" of Rock & Roll was that it brought the races together, which is something which the American elite viewed as a Socialist Plot. Sam Phillip's Sun Records stable did not just consist of Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash, he also signed Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Burgess, James Cotton and Junior Parker. The Beatles did not just cover the Isley Brothers and Smokey Robinson, they covered Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers, too. One of the most interesting things about Led Zeppelin's 1973 Madison Square Garden concerts is that on the exact dates when they occured, 120 miles north in Watkin's Glen, NY, what was for a long time the largest amount of people to gather for an American Rock & Roll Festival were attending Summer Jam; featuring the Allman Brothers Band, the Grateful Dead and the Band, while photographs of that concert are just slightly more diverse than the Song Remains the Same it bears in mind to remember that with gate crashing Watkin's Glen was too many a "free" concert the cost of traveling deep into the Catskills during an OPEC embargo must be factored into that price, where as Zeppelin's last three American concerts of 1973 were able to be scalped at far greater prices than their $7.50 listed price; the lack of diversity at both of these shows could partially be blamed on ecoomics.

this reminds me a lot of the discourse surrounding 'young Americans' by David Bowie. A lot of people argue about how he appropriated the Philadelphia soul sound at the time, but I think what a lot of people forget is that he described it as "plastic soul" - he knew he wasn't going to sound like all the other artists he was inspired by, but he created that record as a tribute to the sounds that he loved

Just want to add what could be considered a layer into the discussion about Zep. These guys were born during World War II. Their country was being invaded and bombed (unlike the U.S). Post WWII in England was pretty bleak. They had a long recovery following the war full of economic strife and uncertainty. I wonder if this contributed to their youth becoming more aligned with American "black" music?

Led Zeppelin instructed me about the Blues. They introduced me to Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Blind Willie Johnson. I have seen interviews when they give credit to these musicians but unfortunately, they didn’t on their albums initially. Nobody’s Fault But Mine, especially in the intro is Blind Willie’s but who can argue that second part is Led Zeppelin’s. Great content!

As a huge fan of Little Richard, The cherry-picked points about him force me to reconsider how valid any argument in this video actually is. Not only a black artist in the 50s, Richard was Gay and struggled with acceptance (of his sexuality) -especially within his religious community and upbringing- throughout his entire life. To reduce that to “oh he had to dress androgynous because he was black” is an insult to the man and artist. Obviously this is a good and thoughtful vid but that irked me so hard

I was gonna comment that Polyphonic just did a great piece on Led Zepplin, but you're Polyphonic, and this is another piece.

I guess this video got the full force of people just beeing sick of everything beeing viewed exclusively through an American lense.

Led Zeppelin, Cream, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, The Who: all these bands that took The Blues and led to the evolution of Stadium Rock have one thing in common (other than being White) - They're British (I would say all English, but Cream's Jack Bruce ensured some Celtic representation, as did Rory Gallagher) These British bands weren't taking Black music to sell to White people - they took American music to sell to British people. This happened quite literally with Jimi Hendrix - he was ignored in his native land until he was embraced here. It would be churlish to claim that Britain didn't/doesn't have a problem with racism, but it's different from racism in the USA. In the 1960s, the UK wasn't a decade years from Jim Crow, or barely a century from a civil war over slavery. Furthermore, post-war UK (and Europe as a whole) was different from post-war USA. Even in the 60's there was many ruins from the war, with neighbourhoods destroyed and families enduring losses (I don't think it's a coincidence that Ginger Baker and Roger Waters are the two angriest men in British rock and both had lost their fathers in the war). 1950s and 1960 Britain was a bleak place, and the mood of Blues music fit the mood of the people here, even if the specifics of the lyrics are less applicable I'm not trying to invalidate in any way the points made in this video. However, I feel this is very important context that was completely missed. I enjoyed he interviews in this video, but I feel it would very much have benefitted from hearing the voices of Black Brits in addition to Black Americans.

I know I'm about a year late to this party, but I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated this video and the nuance with which your interviewees made their points. I'm a white blues guitarist, and have been more than half of my life. Over the years I have had the privilege of performing with most of the people whose records I loved growing up everybody from BB King, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Lonnie Baker Brooks, Hubert Sumlin (and all the surviving members of Howlin' Wolf's band), multiple artists that played with Muddy Waters, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, and many many more. I had the honor of being the backing band for Eddie Shaw, Otis Clay, and Redd Velvet as the first two were bejng inducted into the blues hall of fame and Redd was performing Bessie Smith as Bessie was inducted that night as well. I have always been a staunch anti-racist and have always done my best to make clear that as much as I love this music, it isn't mine. The black artists that were the architects of this music granted me the honor of sharing this music with me, and I always do my best to make sure that I tell my audiences where this music came from, why it came from the people, times and places that it did. I am extremely careful about the material I cover from other artists because there is nothing more distasteful to me than seeing a white artist perform blues songs that are about a part of the black American experience that is totally outside their understanding. Recently there has been a strong backlash against white blues artists and many people have blanketed all of us as thieves. While I absolutely understand that if it where not for the black men and women that created this music it wouldn't exist at all, I also know that Muddy Waters had many white musicians in his band, as have most of the post-war black blues artists, much in the same way that many black legends of Jazz have had white musicians in their bands. For awhile my band had a residency at the New Orleans location of BB King's blues club ( I am from New Orleans), towards the end of our run there I had begun performing an old blues song called "She Wants to Sell My Monkey" which has been performed by numerous artists but one of the best performances was by BB and it was kind of a way for me to attempt to honor him after his passing. One night after doing the song I noticed one of the cooks seem to take great objection to me performing that song and it absolutely crushed me. I went to talk to him at set break and we had a discussion about how in the context of the song the phrase "she wants to sell my monkey" being about a man troubled because his significant other has decided to become a prostitute, that the monkey he is upset about is between this woman's legs. We hashed it out and we were all good for the rest of my tenure there but it caused me to think really hard about what I was doing, to the point that I actually stopped performing completely for a couple of years because it occurred to me that however unintentionally I might have been hurting people just by playing music I love. Eventually I got to sit down and have a conversation with an artist named Corey Harris who in my opinion is one of the best musicians currently on the planet and I asked him what he, as a black man, thought about what I was doing. His reply was that if I was coming from a place of love and genuine appreciation, making sure that I was employing black artists, celebrating black artists, making sure that I used my platform, small as it may be, to try to elevate and promote black blues artists that are playing blues music currently, and essentially that I wasn't "doing more harm than good" that in his opinion I was doing just fine. It is still something I struggle with because the last thing I want to do is harm the people and culture that have given me so much, have invited me in and treated me with respect and have been generous in their friendship. Led Zeppelin absolutely plundered the Willie Dixon catalogue and had to be sued by him before they gave him the credit due to him, as well paying him for profiting off of his work. At the same time I know that when Hubert Sumlin died Keith Richards paid for his funeral, his headstone, his memorial concert, and Hubert told me many times how grateful he and Wolf were to some of the white rock and roll bands of the sixties and seventies for helping to bring their music to more young white people because that was the point at which they really started making money. I have had conversations with BB in which he expressed similar thoughts. I didn't have the chance to know Freddie or Albert King but the members of their bands said much the same. White people absolutely did build their careers on the foundation that those black men and women laid for them, and some most definitely did plunder it in the worst way, but many did not. I was also amazed at how many of the older performers absolutely loved old country and western music and would happily play Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, Gene Autry, Hank Snow and many others. In some ways it seems to me that even though the struggle they endured and crimes committed against them by white people were unimaginably cruel, dehumanizing, often even murderous, in a way that we don't see now (this is not to say that these challenges don't still exist, just that they don't exist in the same way), they weren't as polarized about this as we are in modern times. Some of the stories they told me about the things they endured growing up in early twentieth century Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and to an extent the entire country made my skin crawl and sometimes brought me to tears at the unimaginably cruel ways in which they were treated, and the way in which it was so accepted by the society of the day. This has turned into a rambling rant and I'll stop here, but once more, thank you, and thank you for calling attention to these two creators. I'll be listening to both of them from now on.

As i mexican who grow up listening and playing all tipes of music (black , white , indigenous , spanish ,...etc) its a cultural shock that people in american and england decide what music likes in base of the race/etnicity of the person who plays

Elvis was not ‘safe’. He was hated by parents, filmed from the waist up, and was actually kept from recording far heavier black music. Like Robert, and so many other English artists, they genuinely loved that music, and it’s catharsis. It spoke to a deeper part of your Human. That groups like The Rolling Stones preferred to sing blues music had nothing to do with stardom in the beginning. It was genuine love and on many occasions, these Musicians were scholars of the Blues. Greg Allman would always say ‘ there is no such thing as British Blues. Theres only The Blues.” All that being said, countless Blues Pioneers saw little reward for what they gave to American Music. Most American Music has its origins in Black Music, save for the Elizabethan square rhythmic aspect that English Music recapitulated. Peter Gabriel loved Otis Redding and Sam & Dave, but you have to dig to find it. But it spoke to him in a deep way. Disco, arguably, was not a white phenomenon. It started as early as Barry White mid seventies era R&B when an engineer decided that 120BPM was the standard for radio dance beats. The Bee Gees had been searching for themselves for years in the wreckage of late 60’s early 70’s post psychedelia. They approached R&B in an honest way, and had no idea it would become such a monetary goldmine. Rarely did many classic albums come to be with an anticipation they were preordained for success. My Parents were great lovers of Soul, Motown and R&B / Dance Music. My Mom saw James Brown when I was still in her womb. My Dad auditioned for Stevie Wonder. It took years for them to like The Beatles :) Thank you for this work. It is stimulating and important discussion.

I have been trying to sort out my thoughts on this. Overall I think that this is a fine video and I really appreciated the inputs by Don from The Most Unruly and F.D. Signifier. However I do have a couple of issues, first is that while this is a black lens, it is also american. This matters because you are using Led Zeppelin as the example, Led Zeppelin are an English band and the USA is a massive exporter of culture. The bleaching of black music starts within the local environment by local government and businesses. By the time the music is exported globally significant damage is already done, if the example had have been someone like Elvis who was american the argument that it is cultural appropriation would be stronger as it is, and as you point out at the end, it may simply just be an evolution of the music. My second issue is the idea that great pain leads to great art. That is just bullshit, it doesn't hold up across the majority of cases and it further perpetrates the toxic idea of the tortured artist. The Irish people have undeniably faced a lot of hardship and persecution however you never see trad music in any top 100. Are people expecting a massive surge in popularity for middle eastern music given the recent tragic histories of many countries in that region? The cultural importance of black people within american can really only be viewed as being black in america. The horrors they went through and the continued oppression they face are not how they are able to make culturally relevant music. Its a more complicated relationship within America about american culture. I'm as white as hell so I won't quote it but Paul Mooney made a very particular quote about it that I think is always relevant. sorry if this is rambling and incoherent, just wanted to get some thoughts off my chest.

I agree with some things, disagree with others. But I don’t understand why Led Zeppelin are the “focus” of this video.

you could also make the argument that Zeppelin offered a gateway for a new audience for the original blues artists. I know when I first got into Zeppelin I dug deep into the roots of the songs and discovered a wide range of blues musicians and music that I was not aware of.

12:44 - Yeah, another black Nirvana fan! To Kurt Cobain’s credit, his cover of Leadbelly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” shakes me to my bone marrow. P. S. - I really think the Carpenters are “whiter” in terms of sound, but there is a ton of soul in Karen’s voice and she duetted with Ella Fitzgerald.

I don't remember VH1's Behind the Music being white centric. I checked the wikipedia page, and it looks like 54 of the 213 artists covered were black (~25%). I remember the biggest criticisms of that show being that it was overly dramatic and that they were covering recent artists whose careers still had many years in front of them (ex: there's no Elvis Behind the Music and the majority of the artists covered are from the 80's and 90's). I'm all for calling out racism, but this doesn't seem to be a fair target.

i dont really care about the skin colour of the bands and artists i listen to, i just like what sounds good

I appreciate that you’re coming at these topics as a fan. A lot of people now throw out these accusations and hot takes and it comes across badly because they don’t understand what people like about the music they’re criticizing. This way, you’re able to get these important conversations out to fans without fans of the music getting into their defensive little bubbles. Nuance is key. I think there’s a lot to be said about how black music and black culture is perceived by those growing up in England vs in the US. That’s not to say that England doesn’t have racial issues but the music didn’t come with the same baggage over there. Blues and rock weren’t “race music” over there, it was American music and they wanted to emulate it as such. It’s cool that The Rolling Stones, who also appropriated blues very heavily, tried introducing their heroes, like Howlin Wolf, to their young white audiences, giving credit and spotlight and not letting anyone mistake them for originating the genre. Eric Clapton, for all the ire he gets nowadays (for good reason) also elevates his influences like BB King and Buddy Guy every chance he gets. It’s also interesting how the Beatles are rarely, if ever, accused of the same kind of appropriation, and I think that’s because their influences were equally black and white, equal parts Chet Atkins and Chuck Berry, country and rock and roll. They also wore their Little Richard and doo-wop vocal group influences on their sleeves and were proud of it, similarly to The Rolling Stones. Everybody gets their style from somebody else. The key seems to be accepting and recognizing where you get it from instead of pretending it’s all original. Zeppelin, coming at the end of the decade, probably felt like the genre had moved away from its roots enough to not warrant direct shoutouts. Who knows. There have been lots of great black artists in rock music since Jimi Hendrix and it’s unfortunate that the industry sidelined many of them for so long and made the genre monocultural.

Worth pointing out that "back in the day," you wouldn't get the life sued out of you for covering a song or doing a new version of something without writing "COVER" at the beginning of every heading. It was assumed that songs grew off of each other and developed over time, like "St. James Infirmary Blues" or "House of the Rising Sun."

An amazing example of a current black rock artist is Fantastic Negrito, can not recommend his music enough, his entire album "Please Don't Be Dead" is a masterpiece front to back

As an asian Who loves Rock in all its genres I had No Idea about the African American influences! I only started researching history of rock when I stumbled upon your amazing channel 🔥🔥 Thank u so much I look forward to learn more !

I have the impression that the British bands who got into the Blues - John Mayall, the Stones, Yardbirds, Clapton, even Led Zep - did so with a lot of respect, but also incorporated their own experiences. They may have rescued the Blues and kept it alive, and many of the old Blues musicians were grateful to them. But the question remains, why did it have to be English bands that got huge on the back of the Blues? Who knows, it may have been in the wake of the Beatles...

The thing is, the crowd at Woodstock was mixed, the crowd at Altamount was mixed, so what changed in that short time that Zeppelin at MSG was not? Was that just something that got lost when the Hippy Era ended?

Cultural appropriation is an interesting thing bc culture in itself wouldn't exist unless everyone was taking something from someone else. I mean human society is built on the idea of sharing ideas, technology and values

Love all of your work, but I'd love to see more content like this where you collaborate with other creators and get multiple perspectives. Very cool video

Your Bonham video was the video that hooked me to your channel and you've never disappointed. Even if I'm not a fan of the genre ( any rap ) I've learned a lot from your in depth research.

I think the suggestion that because Led Zeppelin existed other artists didn’t get heard is more than a little bit of a stretch. I would say curious listeners actually learned more about Black artists because of being exposed to the style through Led Zeppelin. I am not suggesting that they didn’t steal from some black artists, but the suggestion that that means that those artists got less opportunity as a result is questionable at best.

Great video. I'm writing a paper about this very sort of topic and this video has given me plenty of ideas to think about. Thank you.

Great video and thanks for bringing these great channels to our attention.

Blues for life. If you read the lives of these musicians which inspired Led Zep, they aren’t even given the same respect (back then or now) as Led Zep

*sees the preview for the next video* Oh, he's going "there" I pray for your ad revenue

Great video-essay. You are very brave, this topics are really needed. Thanks!!

What a fantastic video. Can't wait for the next one!

There is a black rock band from the 70s called Mother's Finest that are absolutely amazing

Rather than wade into the weeds of the comment section on this one, I'm just going to plug a black rock band that fucking rules: Death. Formed in Detroit in 1964, they were one of the best proto-punk bands the city ever produced. Check them out.

incredible. i have officially watched all the videos and all of them are so incredibly researched, it blows my mind.

Hey, can I make a portuguese version of this video?

The problem with the point made by your first contributor is that he's talking about something subjective. Your video aligned with his narration seems to suggest Little Richard had 'soul', whereas Elvis was nothing but a tool with no 'soul'. There are millions of people who would disagree, so it's an opinion but presented as fact. I actually agree with him to an extent, as I'd rather listen to LR, but can anyone who knows anything about Elvis deny his genuine love for the music he sung? I understand the larger point about thr industry itself needing white people to lead the sales, and I agree with that. Just feel Elvis gets alot of hate for someone who was also very poor, and was a music lover at a young age Edit, just to summarise: points about the inherent racism in the industry during the 50s is a genuine fact, but you can't dictate who has 'soul' and who doesn't in an objective way. Does a black person playing Bach not have soul because it's not part of his heritage?

wish youtube had a sort by controversial option for the comment section. excellent video

Beautiful work. Very well researched and thought out.

Im really glad that you are doing this series

the next video about the groupies is gonna be a hard one to watch

I learned about Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and Robert Johnson from the listening to the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton. Without the latter, I wouldn’t have even learned of the former. My Dad happened to have some Blues records that he introduced me to. And this was over two decades ago, that I learned that nearly all American music came from Black culture.

Very well done! Thank you!

Great video production :)

I'm in my mid 50s. Grew up on all kinds of music ( Guitar, bass, drums, loud being my drug of choice ) but can't imagine life without the black music I grew up listening to and still remain in my rotation.

It would be interesting to see how things came full circle with the heavy influence of white dominant rock bands on the zam-rock and afrobeat movements in Africa in the late 70s and even up to present time. I would love a video essay on zam-rock in general either way. Thank you for the great content.

Listening to Zepplin, it always a trip of influences, it seemed they traveled the world, India, American south, Ireland, fusing everything together.

The breakdown had me look this up. A lot I didn't know about Zeppelin. Thanks for being willing to put this out

Pretty impressive how many people know what this 25 minute video is saying within 5 minutes of it being posted. Please tell me how you can see into the future, or at least tell me some lottery numbers to pick.

Is nobody gonna mention that some of the most danceable music by black artists has the emphasis on the 1 and the 3 not the 2 and the 4 such as James Brown and a lot of Funk music? Wrong to say you can only dance to the 2 and the 4.

Excelent, great work!

I love the 4:3 aspect ratio of this video. Oh and the video is awesome as well

10:42 this is one of the few things I agree with, but that's based on more of genuineness over anything. Edit: I also hate calling something like "white" or "black" music or any labels as a certain "color".

Best segment so far. One thing you need to do in the future of Chicano (Mexican-American) rock n roll was rising until British invasion came over.

fd signifier is a great channel fr, these videos are amazing

The audio mix of this video is insanely good

The 2:00 mark part where they mixed the intro to Rock n Roll to the Immigrant Song scream and this other song (which is killing me that I’m not remembering) was the hardest transition of all time

FD Signifier sent me! Such an important conversation to have ✊🏿

Little Richard you think he would have lived in a big city when he passed away but he died in a small town outside Nashville,Tennessee called Tullahoma.

Best video essay on The subject I've seen all year

Amazing job as always! You continue to outdo yourself with every video!

I think one thing that is important to understand is that blues and "black music" were very big in the UK, this is something people often forget. All these white musicians grew up on this music, they learned from this music, it was their culture in a way, specifically musically speaking (ONLY IN TERMS OF THE MUSIC). It's not really that they saw this culture and decided to steal it, or that they wanted to pretend to be black, it's simply the music that they knew and learned from. If your musical education was done through a certain genre, it will come out in your playing, and it's where your inspiration will come from. It's up to your personal view if that makes it right, I certainly feel it's not really appropriation. If they were singing about working on the cotton fields or about anything like that, that would be different, but I don't recall them doing that. (Also I loved the video, especially bringing on black voices) Edit: This video did an excellent job, my comment was just made to put light on a part of the discussion that was missed in the video, I think anyone who is ignoring that there was/is a problem in the music industry is doing some serious mental gymnastics to ignore that fact. If anyone is confused about what I said in my main point, look in the comments, I talk more indepth in my replies.

How do you make your thumbnails??

This video was amazing! Loved it

The fact that his friend had no black jazz musicians on a jazz playlist is unfathomable to me. No Davis? No Adderly? How?

I would be super interested in a video about the rise of Asian musicians when it comes to classical music. I study in a musical school in Germany and it’s really interesting to me that my course, which is about Jazz- and Pop, contains of basically only white students and the classical course contains of 80% Asian students. I do find that very interesting since a lot of classical music obviously originates from Europe and especially Germany and yet the dominance of certain groups in the different genres seems really strange to me. And even tho Germany might not have the same percentage of black people In our population that America has, it’s still really strange that I haven’t seen a single black student yet at our school, especially since all of the music in our institute has such strong black origins.

Tough conversation, but really necessary

Love your work..I remember searching out the roots of bands I loved when in hs...grad of 87 so it took a little more effort and I might still have a John Lee Hooker cassette somewhere from around 1985-86. .but I always was that person that needed to know as much as I could on anything im into and music has always been very important since being in Kiss army at age of 11...so I don't get why people wouldn't want to know how the music of today became what it is...but I love your videos... you rock!!👏 ✌🎶🎸

I dunno. I bought a lot of blues records over the decades thanks to Led Zeppelin turning me on to that sound when I was a teenager. Howlin Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson...

Music is music and it is for everybody. The broad social and economic forces are to blame, not a group of people defined however displaying their feelings for a certain music. Great video btw!

Great video and great perspectives to consider when approaching the media and art that we chose to support. Most of the popular music from past and present has its roots deep in black influence right down to country music, which I call “the blues for white folk”

this is dope and super insightful!! so glad you got fd signifier on here! amazing.

There seems to be a lot of blame directed at Led Zeppelin that belongs to larger societal forces at play. You acknowledge this at some point but I think you lose sight of it. Nothing is wrong with being creatively influenced by black artists. Of course if they use something specific they should credit those artists. And regarding the end, what did you want them to do, purposely not be successful?

Very informative and insightful video. As a huge fan of their music I appreciate the extra knowledge of what they were inspired by and totally agree that it's important to be "responsible fans" as you said. It's disappointing to know many people will watch this and think you're bashing the band or saying it's inherently wrong to like them. Really shows a lack of critical thinking skills.

What's the background music in the first minute or 2 of the video?

what was that intro music at the very beginning of video?

That remembers me a band called Death, which for what I remember was the first punk rock band, was a black band practically forgotten, if you didn't knew it go on and try, they have some awesome songs.

Apparently I have lived under a rock or dremt 30 something yrs because I remember growing up and watching interviews of members of different bands and hearing them say what inspired the artists when they grew up also including black artists along with the rest of the melting pot. So I'm confused about the stealing rock from anyone? What about Prince.. Lenny Kravitz and..and. I mean I thought that music was everyone's? Yes there has been a progression in what is popular as a whole human race but the way things are today it's the "white man bad". Yes in some cases and especially back in the day but it's not culture against culture for the majority I feel. It's the rich against everyone else. I just wish more people seen it for what it really is. Just because the rich happens to be white means all wite people are bad? If that's the case then every race is bad because there are rich people in EVERY race.

I'm shocked and disappointed with how few views these videos are getting. Great analysis.

Really enjoyed this, thank you.

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

10:51 “Cultural appropriation is when you try to be something that you’re not by hiding behind someone else’s culture. When there’s that lack of authenticity.” As you rightly point out at 22:20 , by that definition, Led Zeppelin did not appropriate black culture. They did not hide behind anyone and they certainly didn’t lack authenticity. 19:22 “That’s what cultural appropriation is...its how the history books are written by the dominant class and the dominant class gets to choose who really made history.” I really appreciated the way you sought out the voices and opinions of people of colour. However your premise that Zeppelin’s success “Kept black communities from doing the same. Intentionally or not, Zeppelin played a big part in us missing out in two generations of potentially incredible black rock” is unfounded. Of course, that isn’t your fault because you, like many other well intentioned individuals, operate within a misguided paradigm. The problem is that the very notion of cultural appropriation is fundamentally flawed. Even if you record the exact same song, but make it your own, you aren’t stealing or diminishing the original. When Stevie Wonder covered the Beatles he arguably made “We Can Work it Out” a better song. Same goes for Jimmi Hendrix culturally appropriating Jewish American culture when he covered “All Along the Watchtower”. White people playing “black music” does not make Chuck Berry cease to exist, it does not erase African-American culture, it expands upon it. Culture with a capital “C” does not spring out of the void, every culture is built on the influences of others. We would not have Led Zeppelin without Muddy Water and we wouldn't have Muddy Waters without Robert Johnson, but we wouldn’t have him without the guitar, which we wouldn’t have without the western traditions of the lute and chromatic scale influenced by the Moorish 4 string oud. Unfortunately, the idea that rock music was stolen is therefore misguided. Culture, unlike many other things of value, is not a commodity with a single user. Culture can’t be stolen, it can only be propagated. It is the same lack of understanding which leads certain conservative mindsets to think that immigrants steal jobs. More people in an economy diversifiy economic potential. There aren’t a finite number of jobs just as there isn’t a finite amount of culture which only one ethnicity can monopolize at any given time. The more people participate, the more economies and cultures grow. What cultural appropriation is trying to convey is systemic racism. Unfortunately the term is misleading and misguided and it makes it harder to understand the mechanism of repression. Culture, when disseminated openly, is not a tool of oppression, it is a means of liberation. Fundamentally, Culture is not a zero-sum game. It cannot be stolen or appropriated. An individual piece of art can be stolen. If Led Zeppelin had stolen a Son House tune and passed it off as their own, that would be intellectual property theft, not cultural appropriation. What white societies did to Native Americans/First Nations or to Africans and blacks or to Jews and Arabs is irredeemably reprehensible. The depraved slaughter and enslaving of millions stole lives, not Culture. Thankfully, despite the horrors of racism and repression, Culture lives on.

*what's the song that was playing at the starting of the video*

Thank you so much for doing this much deeper dive into rock music. Hopefully people will listen and then begin to understand not only the song but its roots in our collective history.

Of course, this sort of discussion always makes me think: That there isn't really a reason why we should ultimately disallow British white people from playing the blues.

Watching this video I can't help but think how the image of modern music, especially rock n roll, would be perceived if Jimi Hendrix were still alive (or at least haven't died in 1970). The black history in rock n roll was being hidden when out of nowhere comes a black guitar god who made the best musicians and guitarist of that era tremble at his presence. Even Clapton admitted this. This man was only active from 1966-67ish till his death and still TO THIS DAY is considered to be the best guitarist who ever lived by many. People of color finally had representation in the rock n roll scene. Front and center. And then he tragically dies. Oh, man. What could've been, huh

Can someone tell me the fonts that are being used

Thanks for this video!

Thanks for this video. In looking at rock during the 50s to 70s, I think it is important to separate white British musicians from white American musicians. The white British musicians experienced black music as music, not as race music. Not that Great Britain was not racist, but it did not have the same racial history as the US. In the end, we still end up with Led Zeppelin playing to stadiums of white people. I think the history, particularly on the British side, is different than Americans might assume.

I absolutely love how you're not making a whole month out of praising Led Zeppelin (they get enough of that), but acknowledging what made their success and putting forth all these issues. Really adore these videos, they're very educational!

Thanks a lot man. Very good job 👍🏾

Truly excellent video... Yet again. Thanks for this one.

Generally I feel like music should transcend these barriers but I know it’s not as simple as that, good video

Credit where it's due ✔ Calling music/art either black or white ❌

I'm a big fan of Led Zeppelin and I'm grateful you brought such a great critique! Amazing content, as always

wow...nice video...eye opening ...nice interviews