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How Did The Blues Affect The Harlem Renaissance

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“The Harlem Renaissance and the Blues”
Birthed in the Mississippi Delta, the blues would have un-denying roots from the South. However, long before any form of blues genre came about, slave music expressed the sorrows of the African American experience. At the turn of the 20th century black communities in the south continued the tradition of musical expression by performing in small shacks all around the Delta. It was in these juke joints, that famous artist such as Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters first performed. With the cotton industry taking a turn for the worst many African Americans were living very undesirable. So, they decided to pack up and head North taking their musical traditions and talents with them.
The Harlem Renaissance was one of the greatest cultural movements that took place in the 1920’s. During this period of the time the African American culture began to take shape and flourish like never before. The Harlem Renaissance was a time when African American authors, poets, writers, musicians and photographers began to make their mark in big northern cities such as Washington DC, Chicago, Detroit and New York City. Due to the unwelcoming society of the South and the unfair Jim crow laws many African Americans …show more content…

Born on February 1, 1902 and raised in New York City very own Harlem, Hughes would prove to be one of the most significant writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1926 Hughes published one of his many symbolic poems Weary Blues. The Weary Blues is a poem that was able to fuse together poetry, jazz and blues which describes one of the distinctive characteristics of the “New Negro” of the Harlem Renaissance. The Weary Blues portrays the overcrowded conditions and employment difficulties blacks faced in Harlem. Those who suffered from ambiguity because of lack of monetary resources and basic luxuries: In a deep song voice with a melancholy

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