Another type of music heavily associated with the civil rights movement is soul, a genre which combines the passion and vocal techniques of gospel music with the secular subject matter and instrumentation of rhythm & blues. As performed by such artists as James Brown and Aretha Franklin, soul dominated both the pop and r&b charts in the 1960s with both blacks and whites buying the same records. This soul explosion coincided with the spirit of integration in America which inspired the struggle for civil rights. By the mid-1960s such songs as Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions' "Keep on Pushing" expressed the hopes of African-Americans for a better life. Unfortunately, although soul music triumphed on the pop charts, black artists and business leaders (with the notable exception of Berry Gordy, Jr. at Detroit's Motown Records) were still largely dependent on white music industry professionals. In April 1968 the golden age of soul came to an end with the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.--an event which caused unmistakable hostility in black neighborhoods all over the United States. James Brown's 1968 "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" reflected a new political thrust among the black community. Instead of focusing exclusively on integration into white mainstream America, the more separatist ideas of black power and black pride were beginning to take hold with a younger generation of African-Americans.
Issues of race continue to be major concerns in American society today and popular music has dealt with these issues throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. In the 1970s artists like Stevie Wonder ("Living For the City") and Marvin Gaye ("Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)") explored in their music the plight of African-Americans in urban areas. In the 1980s and 1990s songs about relations between black and white Americans continued to hit the pop charts (Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney "Ebony and Ivory"; Michael Jackson "Black or White"). It is rap music, however, which confronts the widening rift between black and white Americans most directly. Perhaps the most socially-conscious music of the 1980s and 1990s, rap (a phrase coined in 1976) began in New York dance clubs with DJs interspersing instrumental breaks from popular records with other songs. Using turntables, sound mixers and such techniques as "scratching" and "sampling," rap developed into an independent form of music that reflected the African-American experience in poor, city neighborhoods. One of the most important early rap songs is "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five which depicts the vicious cycle of ghetto life. The emergence of rap coincided with the ambiguous social legacy of the 1960s civil rights movement and the resurgence of black nationalism in America. Among the mainstream media and general public, rap sometimes has the negative reputation of violent and/or sexually explicitly lyrics. While this is often true, rap's proponents assert that strong language is necessary to accurately capture a sense of a violent, chaotic society. Groups like Public Enemy ("Fight the Power") express the rage and alienation many poor, urban African-Americans feel. Furthermore, rap's critics also often ignore rap's more positive aspects including its encouraging renewed black cultural pride and its outspoken confrontation of tough social issues. Such songs as "White Lines (Don't Do It)" by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel and Digital Underground's "The Danger Zone" have explicitly anti-drug lyrics while performers like Salt 'n Pepa ("Ain't Nothing But a She Thing") and Queen Latifah ("Ladies First") demonstrate a strong female presence in rap. The diversity of rap music expresses a range of African-American experience and continues to grow as a music form into the 1990s.