Black Music Trivia
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8correct to beat the crowd
This black music trivia quiz has 109 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 109 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who was the first female artist inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and won 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
Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, taped in March 1983 and aired on NBC that May, is where Jackson's 'Billie Jean' performance popularised the moonwalk.
Q 04Whitney Houston's biggest hit, 'I Will Always Love You', was written and first recorded by whom?
Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton wrote and recorded 'I Will Always Love You' in 1973, a country No. 1 in 1974; Houston's 1992 version from The Bodyguard spent 14 weeks atop the Hot 100.
Q 05Which singer was Whitney Houston's cousin?
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is Whitney Houston's cousin: Warwick's aunt is Whitney's mother, gospel and soul singer Cissy Houston, whose Sweet Inspirations sang backing vocals for Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley.
Q 06Which 1965 song gave James Brown his first top-ten pop hit and first Grammy?
Papa's Got a Brand New Bag
'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag' reached No. 8 on the Hot 100 in 1965 and won Brown the Grammy for Best R&B Recording; its stripped-down, interlocking rhythm became the template for funk.
Q 07Chuck Berry's 'Johnny B. Goode' is the only rock and roll song included on what?
The Voyager Golden Record
The Voyager Golden Record, launched in 1977 aboard the two Voyager probes as a message to any civilisation that finds them, carries 'Johnny B. Goode' as its only rock and roll track.
Q 08Chuck Berry recorded his 1955 breakthrough 'Maybellene' for which label?
Chess Records
Chess Records, the Chicago blues label of Leonard and Phil Chess, released 'Maybellene' in 1955; adapted from the fiddle tune 'Ida Red', it sold over a million copies.
Q 09Beyonce rose to fame in the late 1990s as lead singer of which group?
Destiny's Child
Beyoncé fronted Destiny's Child, the Houston group whose 'Bills, Bills, Bills' and 'Say My Name' topped the Hot 100 in 1999 and 2000, before going solo with Dangerously in Love in 2003.
Q 10Which Kendrick Lamar album was the first non-classical, non-jazz Pulitzer Music winner?
DAMN.
DAMN., released in April 2017, won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, announced on April 16, 2018, the first winner from outside classical music and jazz.
Q 11Which 1979 single by the Sugarhill Gang took rap from the Bronx to the national Top 40?
Rapper's Delight
'Rapper's Delight', released in September 1979, reached No. 36 on the Hot 100; by then its party-rhyme style was already old news at the Bronx block parties where hip hop began.
Q 12DJ Kool Herc's August 11, 1973 party, the 'birth of hip hop', took place at which Bronx address?
1520 Sedgwick Avenue
1520 Sedgwick Avenue, a Bronx apartment building, hosted Cindy Campbell's back-to-school party on 11 August 1973, where her brother Kool Herc extended records' drum breaks for the dancers.
Q 13Alongside rapping, DJing and graffiti, what is the fourth principal element of hip hop?
Breakdancing
Q 21Jamie Foxx won the Best Actor Oscar for portraying which blind singer and pianist?
Ray Charles
Ray Charles was played by Jamie Foxx in Ray (2004); the biopic runs from the 1930s to 1979, the year 'Georgia on My Mind' became Georgia's state song.
Q 22Which 1962 Ray Charles album includes his No. 1 hit 'I Can't Stop Loving You'?
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (1962) topped the Billboard album chart for 14 weeks, and its 'I Can't Stop Loving You' spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Q 23Which 1976 Stevie Wonder double album includes 'Sir Duke' and 'Isn't She Lovely'?
Songs in the Key of Life
Breakdancing, or b-boying, is the fourth element alongside MCing, DJing and graffiti, a canon set out by the Universal Zulu Nation as hip hop emerged in the 1970s Bronx.
Q 14'The Message' (1982), a landmark of politically conscious rap, was released by which act?
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released 'The Message' on Sugar Hill Records in 1982; Melle Mel's verses about life in the projects broke from the party rhymes of early rap.
Q 15Run-DMC's 1986 crossover hit 'Walk This Way' was recorded with which rock band?
Aerosmith
Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry joined Run-DMC on the 1986 'Walk This Way', which reached No. 4, put rap on MTV's rock-heavy rotation and revived Aerosmith's career.
Q 16Louis Armstrong's 1964 recording of 'Hello, Dolly!' reached No. 1 by dislodging which act?
The Beatles
'Hello, Dolly!' knocked The Beatles' 'Can't Buy Me Love' off No. 1 in May 1964, ending their 14-week run at the top; Armstrong, then 62, spent 22 weeks on the chart.
Q 17Which nickname belonged to New Orleans trumpeter Louis Armstrong?
Satchmo
Satchmo, short for 'satchel mouth', was Louis Armstrong's best-known nickname; 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
'Crazy Blues', recorded for Okeh in August 1920 and written by Perry Bradford, sold hundreds of thousands of copies and convinced labels there was a market for Black artists.
Q 19Which composition is regarded as W. C. Handy's signature work?
Saint Louis Blues
'Saint Louis Blues', published in 1914, became Handy's most recorded work and earned him the title 'Father of the Blues'; he had published 'The Memphis Blues' two years earlier.
Q 20B.B. King gave what name to his guitars, after a fire at a show in Twist, Arkansas?
Lucille
Lucille: two men fighting over a woman named Lucille knocked over a kerosene heater at a 1949 dance in Twist, Arkansas; King ran back into the blaze for his guitar and named it, and every successor, after her.
Songs in the Key of Life (1976) entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1 and won Album of the Year; 'Sir Duke', its tribute to Duke Ellington, topped the Hot 100 in 1977.
Q 24Berry Gordy's Detroit headquarters at 2648 West Grand Boulevard carried what nickname?
Hitsville U.S.A.
Hitsville U.S.A. was the name painted over the door of 2648 West Grand Boulevard, the house that served as Motown's headquarters from 1959 to 1968 and held its Studio A, nicknamed the Snake Pit.
Q 25In June 1972 Berry Gordy's label announced it was moving all operations from Detroit to which city?
Los Angeles
Motown moved to Los Angeles in 1972, following Gordy's push into film with Diana Ross's Lady Sings the Blues; he sold the company to MCA 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
The Supremes began in 1959 as The Primettes, a sister act to the Primes (later of the Temptations), before Berry Gordy signed and renamed them in 1961.
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
'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' topped the Hot 100 for seven weeks from December 1968, Gaye's first No. 1; Gladys Knight & the Pips had taken the same song to No. 2 a year earlier.
Q 28Which Prince film won him an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score?
Purple Rain
Purple Rain (1984), the loosely autobiographical film whose soundtrack spent 24 weeks at No. 1, won Prince the Oscar for Best Original Song Score, the last time that award was given.
Q 29Prince's home and recording complex in Chanhassen, Minnesota, is called what?
Paisley Park
Paisley Park, opened in 1987 in Chanhassen, Minnesota, was Prince's home, studio and soundstage complex; he died there in April 2016, and it opened to the public as a museum that October.
Q 30Which 1984 compilation is the best-selling reggae album of all time?
Legend
Legend, released in May 1984 three years after Marley's death, collects Bob Marley and the Wailers' hits and has sold over 25 million copies worldwide, far ahead of any other reggae album.