A Bad Rap

Michael O'Malley, Associate Professor of History and Art History, George Mason University

Cook, who had studied music formally at Oberlin College and then in Berlin, regarded his musical Clorindyas a breakthrough, a step away from the "ghetto" of the minstrel show and towards high culture and legitamacy. But when Cook's mother, a respectable, educated middle class woman, heard the songs, she cried, saying, "I've sent you all over the world to study and become a great musician and you return such a nigger!"

Unlike his Mother, who thought European classical music was the only form worth studying, Cook liked African American musical forms like the cakewalk and ragtime as much as he liked classical music. But to make his musical popular, Cook was forced to include degrading stereotypes like those shown on the left. He continued troughout his career to try to find a musical voice which was both true to vernacular African American culture and free of such stereotyping.