Midwest USA

The Midwestern USA is heavy with history. The music, the remnants of the plantations, the museums: it all seems to breathe a history of racial inequality. Some of that is gone now, fortunately. The museums erected on the sites of old plantations are a gravestone to the out-in-the-open racism of the times of slavery.

But when you travel through the vast area, it’s clear that not all misfortune has left this place. Growing up in the rural Midwest, you still don’t have the same chances as you would if you’d been raised in, say California.

If hardship and strife are the fertilizer for music, it seems no surprise that so much of the music we listen to today has its roots in places like Nashville, New Orleans and Memphis.