1950s Grandma warns of the dangers of reefers, "be bop" music, and communism - eviltoast
  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    For context, Bebop was a popular style of Jazz, that like so many other American styles of music emanated from black musicians. So being “degenerate”, “going to the bad part of town”, and listening to bebop would have been understood at the time as explicit racial coding.

    That’s right, “black” music can turn white kids bad, even when it doesn’t have lyrics.