Debra Devi: Dirty Words and Gender Switching in the Blues

Debra Devi: Dirty Words and Gender Switching in the Blues

"Luckily, their cultural values were strong. They expressed them through the one art that left no artifacts for slave owners to destroy -- music. As the Africans became Americans, they created the blues, a music so emotive and rich with possibility that it birthed jazz and rock 'n' roll within decades of its own conception.


They may have arrived here with nothing, but they enriched and vitalized American language and culture beyond measure."