Four "Cake Walk" Postcards, c. 1900, featuring Bert Wiliams, George Walker, Aida Overton, and Stella Wiley; Williams and Walker were probably the two most famous African-American entertainers at that time. The "cakewalk" was a ostensibly a modified slave dance, performed in mockery of white social pretense, though this fact did not stop its popularity from spreading to all corners of society at the turn of the century.

Above: "La Pas Ma La" by Ernest Hogan, 1895. Set to a habanera rhythm, labeled by some as "the first rag-time song", it contains some distinctly "New Orleans" characteristics. Complete music was reproduced and discussed in our first issue.