A very fun & informative class! Professor Brown is one of the best lecturers on campus. He makes so many insightful points about a broad spectrum of American life that surrounded the music, which really brings a deeper level of analysis than most music history classes have.

Like the review below said, there's 2 Midterm tests & a final paper. For the midterm ID's, make sure you write down as much information as you remember, regardless of what the recommended page length is, and you'll get a great grade. The final paper is easy to write because it's on a music topic that YOU choose. Make a strong thesis argument, then use lyrical analysis and/or sound analysis to back it up.

I recently took Afro AM 150 with Professor Scot Brown. Take this professor! Honestly he is more concerned with your grasp of the material, therefore the tests and essays are not that difficult.

There are 4 Components of the class:

1)Discussion section: You are required to post 2 questions per week, based on the assigned readings. The section expands on assigned readings so it is very useful, especially when it comes time for the midterms.
2)1st Midterm. There are 8 given terms and you have to choose 4 of them to define. The terms will be things like Ray Charles, James Brown, Soul Music in relation to the Black Power movement etc.
3)2nd Midterm. Same amount of questions. Terms like Soul Train, Chaka Khan Disco etc. Overall midterms are doable if you got to lectures. Honestly all readings do not need to be done because they can be repetitive and go into more detail than needed.
4)Final paper. 6-8 pages, only 1 mandatory source. You pick the artist, song, concert etc you want to talk about.
For example, I am writing about rap music being a misogynistic genre and relating that to the construction of the Black female rapper. Then I will incorporate readings.