Rock n roll has never been just music. Heavy metal, Rhythm & Blues, Art Rock, New Wave and the others may be primary styles or genres, but as subcategories of rock or rockin roll they do not cumulatively add to the whole. Rock n' Roll is a movement, a lifestyle, in many ways a belief system and everything that Rock n' Roll is today owes it to history: two years, no more than three, when the fabric of the culture American folklore was torn and rewoven, and a new era began explosively. Rock n Roll began with slavery. To understand we must understand what slavery was and where it left the sons and daughters of Africans who knew nothing of the European rods of American culture. Each society has its own indigenous music, which serves as entertainment, story telling and accompaniment to rituals and ceremonies. It is not nearly enough to identify the black musical legacy from slave labor songs through Rag Time, Blues, Jazz, Gospel, R&B and the like, and simply extrapolate the line further to include Rock n Roll. Rock n Roll starts from this foundation, but adds more, and what it mainly adds is white America, both in the music and in the audience. White America slowly discovered a captivating and inspiring musical heritage that had become central to the lives of African Americans and, establishing a tradition that is protected to this day, began to imitate and adapt black music. So these forms of hub-busting came sooner or later, Rock n Roll incorporated musical elements of Country and Western, Swing, Classical, Big Band, Folk and even Tin Pan Alley, just as it incorporated Blues, R&B. It would be wrong, therefore, to argue that Rock n Roll is intrinsically "black" music, even if clearly without the presence of Africans.