Ted Gioia writing in Daily Beast:
...In the modern day, we are familiar with white rock musicians borrowing sexualized lyrics and song structures from the blues, and building their successes off innovations from the African diaspora. But are you aware that a similar cross-cultural borrowing took place in the middle of the 19th century? Or that the troubadours of the late medieval period drew on precedents from Africa and the Middle East? Or that a similar cultural appropriation took place in ancient times?More here
Some of these borrowings are entirely written out of the music history books. The qiyan, the singing female slaves of the Islamic world, invented the key elements of courtly love long before they were known in Europe. I have a whole shelf of books on troubadour love songs in front of me, and not one of them mentions these innovators, whose music spread into Europe via North Africa after the Muslim conquest of Spain. Yet the bold concept of lovers pledging service to their beloved, the key to the troubadour songs, came from these enslaved women—who
All-but-forgotten sources tell us of an even earlier meeting between African and European musical cultures from the 7th century. Saint Valerius, an ascetic monk from this period whose autobiographical sketches have survived, was shocked by his encounter with an Ethiopian priest who performed love songs on the lute. Valerius resided in Spain before the Moorish invasion, but his experiences make it clear that African songs of romance were entering Europe even during the Visigoth era. It is worth nothing that no love songs in the vernacular language have survived from the Christian world during this period—so these hints of a vibrant African tradition are especially revealing.
