Race record

At the turn of the twentieth century, the cost of listening to music went down, providing a majority of Americans with the ability to afford records.

In the 16 October 1920 issue of the Chicago Defender, an African-American newspaper, an advertisement for Okeh Records identified Mamie Smith as "Our Race Artist".

[11] To maximize exposure, record labels advertised in catalogs, brochures, and newspapers popular among African Americans, like the Chicago Defender.

[9] Race records ads frequently reminded readers of their shared experience, claiming the music could help African Americans who moved to the North stay connected with their Southern roots.

[19] Companies like Okeh and Paramount enforced their objectives in the 1920s by sending field scouts to Southern states to record black artists in a one-time deal.

[19] Others regard the investments as being motivated simply by profit, namely by the low cost of production resulting from the easy exploitation of black writers and musicians, combined with the ease of distribution to a highly targeted class of consumers who have little access to a fully competitive marketplace.

The control of white owned music companies was tested in the 1920s, when Black Swan Records was founded in 1921 by the African American businessman Harry Pace.

These genres included classical, opera, and spirituals, chosen by Pace to encourage the advancement of African American culture.

He intended the company to provide an economic ideal for African Americans to strive towards, proving that they could overcome social barriers and be successful.

Hence, Black Swan paid fair wages and allowed artists to showcase their race records using their real names.

[10] It was not until after World War II that rhythm and blues, a term spanning most sub-genres of race records, gained prevalence on the radio.

In June 1949, at the suggestion of Billboard journalist Jerry Wexler, the magazine changed the name of the chart to Rhythm & Blues Records.

Wexler wrote, "'Race' was a common term then, a self-referral used by blacks...On the other hand, 'Race Records' didn't sit well...I came up with a handle I thought suited the music well – 'rhythm and blues.'...