Wikipedia: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is the title of a song by Ma Rainey referring to the Black Bottom dance, which has been taken as the name of a 1982 play; one of a ten-play cycle by August Wilson that chronicles 20th Century African American experience. The play is set in Chicago in the 1920s (the only play in the group not set in Pittsburgh) and deals with issues of race, art, religion and the historic exploitation of black recording artists by white producers.