The central project of Houston A. Baker's criticism has been to establish the aesthetics of an Afro-American literary tradition. What begins in Long Black Song (1972) as a sociohistorical imperative for the study of Afro-American literature ends in Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature (1984) as an ideological analysis of Afro-American culture and its forms of expression.

Baker insists upon the need for separate criteria to evaluate Afro-American literature. Because there is a "marked difference between the whole way of life of the black man and the whole way of life of the white man" and because "black folklore and the black American literary tradition that grew out of it reflect a culture that is distinctive both of white American and of African culture." he asserts in Long Black Song, the criticism and history of Afro-American literature must be generated by that culture and those traditions and not imposed from outside...