This black music trivia quiz has 60 free questions with answers and runs the whole story: field spirituals and the first blues recording, ragtime and the Harlem clubs, gospel and Motown, soul, funk and disco, then the Bronx block parties, Chicago house and Detroit techno that came after. You will meet Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, James Brown and Aretha Franklin, Prince and Whitney Houston, and end up with Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar. It works for a Black History Month classroom round, a music trivia night, or a solo test of how much you really know. The early questions are easy enough for anyone who has heard the radio; the later ones ask about labels, producers, chart records and the people behind the songs. Every answer was checked against a primary or encyclopedic source before it went in, and each question shows its explanation as soon as you answer, so you leave knowing a little more than when you started.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 'Queen of Soul' was the first female artist inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Aretha Franklin
She was inducted in 1987 and went on to win 18 Grammys, including the first eight ever given for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.
Q 02Which arranger and bandleader produced Michael Jackson's Thriller?
Quincy Jones
The pair first worked together on the 1978 film The Wiz, and Jones went on to produce three of Jackson's solo albums.
Q 03Michael Jackson first showed the moonwalk to a TV audience on which 1983 special?
Motown 25
The special was subtitled Yesterday, Today, Forever, and the performance of 'Billie Jean' that night is credited with popularising the move.
Q 04Whitney Houston's biggest hit, 'I Will Always Love You', was written and first recorded by whom?
Dolly Parton
The country original dates from 1974; Houston's version led The Bodyguard soundtrack, which became the best-selling soundtrack album in history.
Q 05Which singer was Whitney Houston's cousin?
Dionne Warwick
Houston's mother Cissy sang backing vocals for major soul stars and Elvis, and opera star Leontyne Price was also a cousin.
Q 06Which 1965 song gave James Brown his first top-ten pop hit and first Grammy?
Papa's Got a Brand New Bag
Its stripped-down, interlocking rhythm is a template for the funk that Brown is credited with inventing.
Q 07Chuck Berry's 'Johnny B. Goode' is the only rock and roll song included on what?
The Voyager Golden Record
The record was launched into space in 1977 aboard the two Voyager probes as a message to any civilisation that finds them.
Q 08Chuck Berry recorded his 1955 breakthrough 'Maybellene' for which Chicago label?
Chess Records
The song was an adaptation of the country tune 'Ida Red' and sold over a million copies.
Q 09Beyonce rose to fame in the late 1990s as lead singer of which group?
Destiny's Child
She now holds the record for the most Grammy Awards won by anyone, and her 2016 album Lemonade was that year's best seller.
Q 10Which Kendrick Lamar album was the first non-classical, non-jazz Pulitzer Music winner?
DAMN.
The prize was announced on April 16, 2018, a year after the album's release.
Q 11Which 1979 single by the Sugarhill Gang took rap from the Bronx to the national Top 40?
Rapper's Delight
By the time it charted, the style it captured was already considered old news at Bronx block parties.
Q 12DJ Kool Herc's August 11, 1973 party, the 'birth of hip hop', took place at which Bronx address?
1520 Sedgwick Avenue
It was a back-to-school rent party thrown by his sister Cindy Campbell, where Herc extended the drum breaks of records.
Q 13Rapping, DJing and graffiti art are three of hip hop's four principal elements. What is the fourth?
Breakdancing
The culture emerged in the early 1970s among African-American and Afro-Caribbean communities in New York City.
Q 21Jamie Foxx won the Best Actor Oscar for portraying which blind singer and pianist?
Ray Charles
The 2004 biopic covered his life from the mid-1930s to 1979, the year his 'Georgia on My Mind' became Georgia's state song.
Q 22Which 1962 album by the singer of 'What'd I Say', with 'I Can't Stop Loving You', pulled a genre into pop?
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
Its cover of 'I Can't Stop Loving You' became one of the biggest singles of the year.
Q 23Stevie Wonder holds the record for the most Grammy Awards won by a solo artist. How many?
25
He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award, and topped the Hot 100 at 13 with 'Fingertips', the youngest artist ever to do so.
Q 14'The Message' (1982), a landmark of politically conscious rap, was released by which act?
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
Its focus on life in the housing projects broke from the party rhymes that dominated early rap records.
Q 15Run-DMC's 1986 crossover hit 'Walk This Way' was recorded with which rock band?
Aerosmith
The collaboration put rap on MTV's rock-heavy rotation and revived the band's own career.
Q 16Louis Armstrong's 1964 recording of 'Hello, Dolly!' reached No. 1 by dislodging which act?
The Beatles
At 62 he became the oldest person to top the Hot 100, and the record stayed on the chart for 22 weeks.
Q 17Which nickname belonged to New Orleans trumpeter Louis Armstrong?
Satchmo
He was also called 'Satch' and 'Pops', and rose to fame with his Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings of the 1920s.
Q 18Which 1920 Mamie Smith recording is regarded as the first of its kind by an African-American singer?
Crazy Blues
The song was written by Perry Bradford, and its success convinced labels that there was a market for Black artists.
Q 19Which composition is regarded as W. C. Handy's signature work?
Saint Louis Blues
Handy had published 'The Memphis Blues' two years earlier, in 1912, one of the first blues pieces in print.
Q 20B.B. King gave what name to his guitars, after a fire at a show in Twist, Arkansas?
Lucille
Two men had started the fire fighting over a woman of that name, and King ran back into the burning building to rescue the guitar.
Q 24Berry Gordy's Detroit headquarters at 2648 West Grand Boulevard carried what nickname?
Hitsville U.S.A.
The house served as headquarters from 1959 to 1968; the label started life as Tamla Records with an $800 family loan.
Q 25In June 1972 Berry Gordy's label announced it was moving all operations from Detroit to which city?
Los Angeles
Gordy later sold the company to MCA Records and Boston Ventures in 1988 for $61 million.
Q 26Diana Ross's group, holder of twelve Hot 100 number ones, was originally called what?
The Primettes
Most of their hits were written and produced by the team of Holland-Dozier-Holland.
Q 27Which song was Marvin Gaye's first Hot 100 number one, topping the chart for seven weeks from December 1968?
I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Gladys Knight & the Pips had already taken the same song to No. 2 a year earlier.
Q 28Which 1984 Prince film won him an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score?
Purple Rain
The loosely autobiographical film and its album cemented the Minneapolis sound he pioneered.
Q 29Prince's home and recording complex in Chanhassen, Minnesota, is called what?
Paisley Park
In 1993 he swapped his name for an unpronounceable symbol in a dispute with Warner Bros. over how fast his backlog was released.
Q 30Which 1984 compilation is the best-selling reggae album of all time?
Legend
It collects Bob Marley and the Wailers' hits and was released three years after Marley's death.