Punk music is known for its raw, aggressive sound, its edgy fashion, and its mosh pits.

It's also long been known for being predominantly white.

That's changed a lot in recent years, and resurfaced music from its earliest days underscores

that punk has always been influenced and shaped by black artists as well.

Stephanie Sy has this story for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

One, two, three, now!

We were all convinced that we had a clown that no other rock and roll band had at that time.

That time was 1971.

And three brothers from Detroit, David, Dennis, and Bobby Hackney started playing rock and roll.

They were inspired by bands like The Who and Alice Cooper, but their sound had a different edge and reason behind it. In rock and roll, the more times people laugh at you, the more times people reject it, the more times it builds up in anger.

Dennis played the drums.

But the only way we would take out our anger is through the music.

And I guess that's what made the music louder and faster.

The rejection, they say, came from an industry that didn't like the name of their band.

Even though later punk bands had names like the Dead Boys and the Damned, the name, death, turned off major record labels.

David said, yeah, why don't we call it death? He had such a conviction about it that we didn't have no choice but to get on board.

And when we did get on board, we were all in.

Bobby was the lead singer and bassist.

We got deaf shirts printed up. We were death.

In more recent years, musicians, writers, and critics have recognized the music Death was playing as the predecessor to punk.

Back in those days, if you call somebody a punk, you've got one or two things.

You've got either a person in the mouth or it started a fight.

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