“It seemed like many of the stories could be easily interpreted as fulfilling black stereotypes. For instance, probably a good half of the stories have music and rhythm as central themes and tropes. Thankfully they are often used to highlight other concerns, avoiding a truly shallow and unproductive interpretation that black folks can dance and sing while white folks have rhythm like a fat man’s heartbeat [...]”

What you notice does not, I am betting, serve to fulfill any particular stereotype about African-Americans or Africans in general. Instead, the music you find present in these works of literature belong to a long tradition of the trope in the literature of that culture.

In America, at least, the presence of music in African-American literature is often traced back to the spirituals and hymns of the slaves. Music was the literature of these people, for it was in song that they expressed themselves with words. Often these spirituals contained meanings beyond the literal words sung, which is by far a sophisticated literature in itself. For example, some spirituals have been interpreted as being both about Jesus and God and all that, as well as offering warning to slaves or offering signals to slave regarding escape, word on the wellness of others, and things of that nature. The language of the spiritual was varied and splendid in its ability to tell two stories at once. It was a sophisticated oral literature.

Music, then, was an important to early African-American lives, and as more African-Americans became literate and began producing written literatures, the importance of music did not disappear. Instead, that musical tradition became ever-present in the written word as well. Music, it turns out, became a common trope or theme that could be traced through many instances of African-American literature, not as a stereotyping, but moreso as a nod to the past.

Poetry by African-Americans was often musical in nature (unless, as some early African-American poets did, the poetry served to mimic white man’s poetry). This persisted in the 18th and 19th centuries. After the freeing of the slaves, and then the subsequent growth in literacy and writing among the former-slave population, writing by African-Americans grew, and with it did the influence of music in this writing.

Music continued to be a trope or theme in the 20th century, as many African-American writers adopted jazz themes in their writing. One notable example is the book Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. It has been shown time and time again that music, particularly jazz, plays a major role in the development of this narrative, working as a sometimes quiet, sometimes loud trope that can be traced throughout the text.

The use of music isn’t meant as a stereotype by any means. Instead, it is the lingering tradition of this culture to include music in its writing since music, for as long as can be remembered, played a significant role in this culture’s development and growth.

The same emphasis on music can be found in native African literature as well, since music plays such a vital role in the lives of those cultures as well.

So, it doesn’t serve to stereotype. Instead, it serves to propogate the tradition…a tradition with a long past and a growing future.