Prog Music - the whitest music, ever!

That's why i said "de-emphasized" and not total absence. That's also why i said percussive music DERIVED from African rhythms, not all music. Europeans did NOT invent the drum. While it is known to exist in ancient China and Southern Asia, it is Africa that was the place where it evolved into rhythms which were imported into the European musical lexicon. Western Classical music utilizes percussive bombast significantly less than other popular musical genres such as jazz, rock and even folk for that matter. I've listened to plenty of medieval music. In fact i've taken college courses on it ;)

I get your drift and i agree that the European style definately has evolved the drumming styles apart from Africa. I'm only talking about the percussive rhythms. For the sake of this thread, no need to delve too deeply. We're simply trying to prove that prog rock isn't the "whitest" music. I personally think Western classical is more "white" simply because it evolved apart enough from other influences and remained within the confines of "white" cultures for centuries whereas prog rock and rock in general has influences from all over the world. In fact, the whole point was to employ as many fusion aspects as possible.

Now if we are only talking about the listening audience, then perhaps prog is definately the "whitest" modern day rock music since it removed a great deal of the blues aspects of rock and replaced it with more complex elements. If we want to take the logic even further then it could be deemed the ultimate white male nerd music since it usually attracts more male listeners than female as far as sheer numbers go. Personally i theorize that this has to do with the male brain being more attracted to thinking in abstraction rather than on an emotional plain which more straight forward melodies evoke. 

Personally i think we have put more thought into this matter in this short thread than the writer of that article did 

Due to segregation and marketing to racial demographics, African-American music has its own trajectory in the late-60s/70s: Funk, Jazz Fusion, Disco, Post-bop, Jazz Funk, etc. (Even after the Civil Rights act, they still lived in different neighborhoods). Both this trajectory, and the prog/punk*/heavy metal trajectory had influence on each other, but were still considered a part of their respective movements. So yeah, you're not going to find a whole lot of black prog artists. It's not really the fault of the genre itself? Though pieces like this may be prompted by an annoyance towards the perceived elitist rhetoric of prog fans, which absolutely exists, but is a bit overstated by other music nerds.

*Despite some famous punk bands like Death and Bad Brains, it was still mostly white folks.

 

I'm sure the article met its goal: get us riled up

 

there was probably no other goal, except maybe speak of Weiler's book.

 

Oddly enough, if you go to see today's Nu-jazz black artistes' concerts (Kamasi Washington, Shabaka Hutchings, etc...), you'll spot nearly zero black people in the audience. It musty be "white music" according to the article's author.

Since homo-sapiens evolved and migrated from the rift-valley in Africa - Yes is definitely MOBO as is all music - if you take the origin back far enough!