This is the largest archive of music and musicians with origins and significant influence from, Negro Spirituals, Gospel, Blues, Jazz, Soul, R&B, Zydeco, Funk and other forms of Black Music.

The artists listed in the archive are from all over the world. The #1 criteria for listing is having a discography or Body of Work that is obviously And admittedly mostly influenced by musical forms that did not exist until those forms were made popular or significant by musicians of African Descent living in the United States.

The #2 Criteria would be longevity and direct influence. This allows musicians who may have focused on teaching and who have very few recordings (and maybe none as a leader) to get their due acknowledgment. Every major city has a Walter Dyett (Chicago) who educated many influential musicians. These masters of music education and motivation should be honored in the archive.

The #3 criteria would be press accolades and performances. Just as with educators, there have been many musicians who are/were significant in their region or even their respective genre who rarely if ever recorded (John Mixon of St. Louis).

Although we will start with a focus on Black Music from North America, there are musical forms from other parts of the world that have also grown from the marriage of European and African musical forms that will be accommodated properly as resources become available. In many cases these musical forms were not referred to as "Black Music" like in North America.

What you will find here in phase 1;

• Consolidated Library of video performances
• Profiles for every significant Artist in any Black Music Genre (The Archive itself)
• A time line of Black Music (with social context)
• Interviews, Documentaries and Special Performances
• Exclusive Content (submitted by artists)

We are just beginning the journey, so for now we are consolidating the video archive with videos that have already been published in places like YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, Metacafe etc. If you would like to participate in this phase of the project, please register and use the video upload feature to point to videos already on the web. The business model will allow for revenue sharing for high levels of participation.

Artist can sign up and create their own profile and upload content (exclusive or not). Artist can also sell mp3 downloads through their profile. And any ad revenues from artists' profile pages will be shared immediately. And after a certain level of traffic to an artists' profile, the artist will have full control over the ad content for their profile, although revenue will still be shared with the BlackMusicArchive.

Come back soon for more info. And please be patient while we execute the plans.

If you would like to be involved as an active content creator, please use our contact form to let us know that you are interested in helping out. We can agree on a category or genre that you can concentrate on filling with artist information.