50 most important African American music artists of all time

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Billie Holiday, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Louis Armstrong, Led Belly, B.B. King, Sam Cooke and Mahalia Jackson. That should just about cover every major musical genre from the last 150 years or so. And what all of those artists have in common is that they are African American. Most popular American music genres began with Black performers. And now is the time to honor that fact. With it being African American Music Appreciation Month, we decided to count down the 50 most important Black music artists of all time in the United States. As you can imagine, this wasn’t an easy list. First, these are American artists, which is why you won’t see artists like Bob Marley or Fela...