Africans introduced Americans to musical rhythms and instruments quite different from the musical traditions of Europeans or Native Americans. In some cases, African musical traditions have blended into American culture with little notice. The banjo, now associated primarily with the bluegrass music popular among white Southerners, was originally an instrument used in African religious ceremonies. African Americans blended African musical forms with European Christian hymns to create distinctive religious songs known as spirituals. In the early 20th century, the tradition of slave spirituals developed into gospel music, a religious song form which incorporated melodies and rhythms from popular music.
Black church choirs around the country continue to sing both gospel and spirituals.
African Americans have also created many secular musical styles. Ragtime music developed among blacks in the urban areas of the North and South after the American Civil War. Another musical style with roots in the African American experience, known as the blues, emerged in the early 1900s. The blues feature vocalists who craft their songs typically reflections on personal events or emotions to fit their own distinctive styles. Both ragtime and the blues contributed to the development of jazz, considered by many to be the most original and complex of American musical forms.