Music and Some Highly Musical People is a pioneering work by James M. Trotter, the first book to document the achievements of African American musicians. Published in 1878, it gathers biographical sketches of black singers, instrumentalists, and composers active in nineteenth-century America.
Trotter wrote to record and celebrate a musical heritage that mainstream histories ignored, combining accounts of individual artists with a defense of their talent and accomplishment. The book includes appended music and stands as a landmark of both musical and African American history. As an early and devoted chronicle of black musical life, it remains an important and pioneering historical document.