What term was used for music recorded by Black artists and marketed primarily to a Black audience?

• A. Race records
• B. Hillbilly records
• C. Pop records
• D. Gospel records

Answer: (A)

In this period, the industry described music by Black artists that was aimed at Black listeners with a specific label: race records. This term reflected both who created the music and who the marketing targeted, and it was used on records in the 1920s and 1930s as a way to segment the market. It’s the best fit because it directly names the arrangement of artist identity and audience that defined that era’s marketing.

Hillbilly records referred to early country music aimed at white rural listeners, pop records were marketed to a broad, general audience, and gospel records denote religious music—not the racial-targeting focus of this term.