In 1896, Ernest Hogan's "All Coons Look Alike to Me" became the first song to sell a million copies in America, making him a star and setting off the "coon song craze"—an era in which African American performers and composers achieved unprecedented professional success while trafficking in the very stereotypes designed to undermine their citizenship. David Gilbert, a historian and musician, traces how coon songs emerged at the intersection of ragtime's rhythmic innovations and post-Reconstruction racial anxieties.

At its core, this is a story about the impossible bargains that Black artists had to make in an era of virulent racism—some of them achieving wealth, respect, and cultural influence by mastering the very forms designed to humiliate them, and finding within those constraints the seeds of a creative revolution that would eventually transform Broadway and American popular culture.

Music

“All Coons Look Alike To Me” – Kylan / ragtimerev
“Bully of the Town” – Holy Modal Rounders
“La Pas La Ma” – Kylan / ragtimerev
“On Emancipation Day” – William Brown
“Save Your Money ‘cause the Winter Am Coming On” – Clarice Vance

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