Does "Rock music is evil / of the devil" have racist roots?
As a Christian most of the circles I'm around are pretty chill...no stone-cold fundamentalists. But I have been around people (and even had family members) who are 100% convinced that rock music is evil and will lead people to engage in witchcraft and draw pentagrams all over their home.
The root of the belief is that rock music uses drums, which are used by voodoo tribes in Africa to entrance people.
Along a different track of thinking, from where did rock music originate? Slaves. They created the guitar because slave-owners didn't allow them to make music with drums.
So then is "rock music is evil" sort of an echo of that attitude?
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I think that it's pretty safe to say that at least some people around you are stone-cold fundamentalists. This sort of discourse doesn't come from non-fundamentalists.
That said as stupid as "rock is [from the d]evil" claim is, I don't think that it's rooted in racism. Instead I think that it's because some values often followed by rock bands, singers and fans clash directly with some values of Christianity.
Note that some sort of percussion pops up in almost every musical style, across the eras.
This was already addressed, but... come on, acoustic guitars are from Middle Ages Iberia, and they backtrack all the way into the lutes of the Ancient Egypt and Anatolia. (Probably. It's so old that the origins are hard to determine.)
And the electric guitar was invented by Les Paul.
Slaves invented the banjo which they developed from stringed gourd instruments they had in Africa.
Oh well the banjo is pretty good too.