In reference to popular music, Founder of Detroit’s Motown Records Berry Gordy once stated that “many ingredients mattered, but the trump card was always truth. If what we heard wasn’t true to the individual group or artist, or didn’t communicate a true feeling, it wasn’t going anywhere.”  The Motown: The Truth Is A Hit exhibition seeks to explore Gordy’s notion of the truth by tracing black music from its African roots through slavery, Jim Crow, the Great Migration, urban America, the Civil Rights and anti-war movements, up to the present day.

The foundation of black music begins and ends with rhythm, harmony, melody, movement, and improvisation. If truth is what you seek, you will find it in the cultural sounds of any black music genre from ragtime, blues and swing to bebop, doo-wop, and hip-hop. So, let the beat drop some knowledge!

Exhibit runs until July 26

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
515 Lenox Ave. (bet. W. 135th and W. 136th Sts.)
Manhattan, NY 10037
For more information click here