Documented
A connection that's well documented - interviews, bios, public artist history.
Influence isn't a family tree.
It's a listening map.
Sonic Ancestors traces musical influence: the records, scenes, and songwriters behind an artist's sound. Some connections are documented - interviews, bios, public history. Others are closer to a listening hypothesis.
Each connection is labeled with how confident it is, rather than pretending influence is a settled fact. The five labels below say what kind of claim each line on the map is actually making.
Influence key
Sonic ancestor
A craft lineage you can hear in melody, harmony, arrangement, or performance.
Scene lineage
A connection through place, era, movement, collaborators, or musical ecosystem.
Comparison
A useful listening comparison, without claiming direct influence.
Interpretive
A deliberately interpretive link that should be read as a listening hypothesis.
What this isn't
This isn't a complete or authoritative history of music - it's a small, hand-picked set of artists to start, plus whatever gets looked up live as people search for it. The labels above exist so you can tell which connections are well-documented and which are closer to an educated guess, not so any single line can be mistaken for the final word.