Slow Drag Character Analysis in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Slow Drag a Black musician in Ma Rainey’s band. A bass player, he seems slow and unobservant but is actually quite intelligent. Like Cutler and Toledo, he’s content to play whatever Ma tells him to play, but he’s also eager to simply get the job done and go home. To that end, he often tries to get his bandmates to focus on rehearsing, reminding them that practicing the songs will help them avoid having to spend all day and night in the studio. And the sooner they finish recording, the sooner they’ll get paid. His practical, workmanlike approach to music jars Levee, who thinks more about making innovative art than about earning money. But Slow Drag doesn’t have such lofty ideas about innovation—he just wants to make a living.

Slow Drag Quotes in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

The Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom quotes below are all either spoken by Slow Drag or refer to Slow Drag. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

SLOW DRAG: Come on, let’s rehearse the music.

LEVEE: You ain’t gotta rehearse that…ain’t nothing but old jug-band music. They need one of them jug bands for this.

SLOW DRAG: Don’t make me no difference. Long as we get paid.

LEVEE: That ain’t what I’m talking about, nigger. I’m talking about art!

Related Characters: Levee (speaker), Slow Drag (speaker), Ma Rainey

Page Number and Citation: 25

Explanation and Analysis:

CUTLER: Slow Drag’s all right. It’s you talking all that weird shit about art. Just play the piece, nigger. You wanna be one of them...what you call...virtuoso or something, you in the wrong place. You ain’t no Buddy Bolden or King Oliver...you just an old trumpet player come a dime a dozen. Talking about art.

LEVEE: What is you? I don’t see your name in lights.

CUTLER: I just play the piece. Whatever they want. I don’t go talking about art and criticizing other people’s music.

Related Characters: Levee (speaker), Cutler (speaker), Ma Rainey, Slow Drag

Page Number and Citation: 26

Explanation and Analysis:

TOLEDO: That’s African.

SLOW DRAG: What? What you talking about? What’s African?

LEVEE: I know he ain’t talking about me. You don’t see me running around in no jungle with no bone between my nose.

TOLEDO: Levee, you worse than ignorant. You ignorant without a premise.

(Pauses.)

Now, what I was saying is what Slow Drag was doing is African. That’s what you call an African conceptualization. That’s when you name the gods or call on the ancestors to achieve whatever your desires are.

SLOW DRAG: Nigger, I ain’t no African! I ain’t doing no African nothing!

TOLEDO: Naming all those things you and Cutler done together is like trying to solicit some reefer based on a bond of kinship. That’s African. An ancestral retention. Only you forgot the name of the gods.

Related Characters: Levee (speaker), Toledo (speaker), Slow Drag (speaker), Cutler

Page Number and Citation: 32

Explanation and Analysis:

LEVEE: See, I told you! It don’t mean nothing when I say it. You got to wait for Mr. Irvin to say it. Well, I told you the way it is.

CUTLER: Levee, the sooner you understand it ain’t what you say, or what Mr. Irvin say...it’s what Ma say that counts.

SLOW DRAG: Don’t nobody say when it come to Ma. She’s gonna do what she wants to do. Ma says what happens with her.

LEVEE: Hell, the man’s the one putting out the record! He’s gonna put out what he wanna put out!

SLOW DRAG: He’s gonna put out what Ma want him to put out

Related Characters: Levee (speaker), Cutler (speaker), Slow Drag (speaker), Ma Rainey, Sturdyvant, Irvin

Related Symbols: The Song (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”)

Page Number and Citation: 36

Explanation and Analysis:

TOLEDO: Everybody worried about having a good time. Ain’t nobody thinking about what kind of world they gonna leave their youngens. “Just give me the good time, that’s all I want.” It just makes me sick.

SLOW DRAG: Well, the colored man’s gonna be all right. He got through slavery, and he’ll get through whatever else the white man put on him. I ain’t worried about that. Good times is what makes life worth living. Now, you take the white man...The white man don’t know how to have a good time. That’s why he’s troubled all the time. He don’t know how to have a good time. He don’t know how to laugh at life.

Related Characters: Toledo (speaker), Slow Drag (speaker), Levee

Page Number and Citation: 41

Explanation and Analysis:

TOLEDO: It ain’t just me, fool! It’s everybody! What you think…I’m gonna solve the colored man’s problems by myself. I said, we. You understand that? We. That’s every living colored man in the world got to do his share. Got to do his part. I ain’t talking about what I’m gonna do...or what you or Cutler or Slow Drag or anybody else. I’m talking about all of us together. What all of us is gonna do.

Related Characters: Toledo (speaker), Levee, Cutler, Slow Drag, Sturdyvant

Page Number and Citation: 42

Explanation and Analysis:

MA RAINEY: They don’t care nothing about me. All they want is my voice. Well, I done learned that, and they gonna treat me like I want to be treated no matter how much it hurt them. They back there now calling me all kinds of names…calling me everything but a child of god. But they can’t do nothing else. They ain’t got what they wanted yet. As soon as they get my voice down on them recording machines, then it’s just like if I’d be some whore and they roll over and put their pants on. Ain’t got no use for me then.

Related Characters: Ma Rainey (speaker), Cutler, Slow Drag, Sturdyvant, Irvin, Sylvester

Page Number and Citation: 79

Explanation and Analysis:

Slow Drag Character Timeline in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

The timeline below shows where the character Slow Drag appears in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Cutler, Slow Drag , and Toledo arrive at the studio. Irvin nervously asks these band members where Ma... (full context)

Collaboration vs. Independence Theme Icon

History, Tradition, and Change Theme Icon

...that now he’s really ready to make music—a statement that, at the very least, pleases Slow Drag , who wants to wrap up the recording session as quickly as possible. Last time,... (full context)

...statement annoys Levee, and he tells Toledo that he reads too many books. But then Slow Drag interrupts and urges his bandmates to rehearse. Levee, however, doesn’t want to practice, since it’s... (full context)

Taking issue with Slow Drag ’s focus on money, Levee boasts that what he cares about is making art. He... (full context)

...in the band, so he has to rehearse just like everyone else. After this conversation, Slow Drag tries to get Cutler to give him some marijuana, reminding him of all the things... (full context)

...all, Sturdyvant is the one putting out the record, so surely his opinion matters most. Slow Drag sides with Cutler, believing that Sturdyvant will have to make do with whatever Ma gives... (full context)

Before they rehearse Levee’s version of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” Slow Drag ’s bass string breaks. Levee makes fun of him, saying that he would take care... (full context)

Slow Drag isn’t quite as pessimistic as Toledo. He believes that Black people will be all right... (full context)

...his overly confident, stubborn viewpoints. Eventually, Toledo calls him the devil, and Cutler wholeheartedly agrees. Slow Drag chimes in and says that he once knew someone who sold his soul to the... (full context)

...end. Toledo, for his part, isn’t so sure, since he knows the devil is powerful. Slow Drag confirms Toledo’s intuition, clarifying that Eliza is still out there. The last Slow Drag heard,... (full context)

...for a moment, all of them taking in Levee’s story. And then, breaking the silence, Slow Drag plays his bass. “If I had my way,” he sings, “I would tear this old... (full context)

...stops the entire session, saying she won’t sing until she has her soda. She sends Slow Drag and Sylvester to the store. (full context)

While the band waits for Slow Drag and Sylvester to come back with the Coke, Ma pulls Cutler aside and chastises him... (full context)

Slow Drag and Sylvester return with the Cokes, at which point Slow Drag goes downstairs to find... (full context)

Toledo and Slow Drag both agree that hauling wood is actually a pretty good job—an idea that mystifies Levee.... (full context)

...pleads. “Tell him don’t look at me like that.” And then, right as Cutler sends Slow Drag for help, the sound of a trumpet blares a high note, and the lights cut... (full context)