Ragtime music, with its syncopated or ragged rhythms, is considered by many observers to be the first purely American form of popular music.
Drawing on a diversity of styles, ragtime emerged from Black communities in cities like St. Louis toward the end of the 1800s, and one of its most famous composer-performers, Scott Joplin, had plenty of ties to both St. Louis and Sedalia. In Sedalia in 1899, Joplin often played piano in a downtown saloon to help pay his way through college. While doing so, Joplin composed and copyrighted a song, Maple Leaf Rag, that became the model for much ragtime music that came afterward.