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African american gospel music essay
African american gospel music essay
Spiritual music and current gospel music
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As I initially began reading Hendricks’ critique of contemporary gospel music, I found myself in agreement. I thought, yes, gospel music has transitioned and no longer is as strongly rooted in liberation, freedom, and justice. My thoughts immediately took me to the works of Kirk Franklin and Yolanda Adams whose gospel songs could be heard during primetime on hip hop radio stations. But then I asked myself, is this so bad and I continued to read further. Gospel “music today…is unmindful and uninvolved with the ongoing freedom struggle of Black people in America.” (page 556) When thinking about the shift in proponents of gospel music, one cannot omit the shift in collective consciousness of society. Collectively, many African-Americans no longer utter words of justice there words are filled with despair and desperation. There are many points presented by Hendricks to shed a negative light on the explosion of gospel music. His analysis of gospel music is not truly a fair depiction. He mentions the reason behind his essay was the article written about Kirk Franklin and stating t...
This aspect of culture was very significant as blacks learned that everyone was equal in God’s eyes. At these churches, the introduction of gospel music generated self expression and thus, these black churches were a representation of social cohesion among blacks. Gordy established this aspect of culture and incorporated gospel music from churches into the soul sound Motown was successful for. Moreover, the formation of African American neighbourhoods was a very important aspect of their culture due to its link to the history of segregation. Although many associated these black neighbourhoods or ‘ghettos’ with negative connotations, for blacks, it signified ‘home’, a place that represented black identity, also including the passion and emotion from overcoming the struggle and suffering of being black.
Before beginning to analyze both Motown and Stax Record’s influence on black consciousness it must first be understood why black consciousness itself can be seen as a step in the right direction in the fight against black struggle. Brian Ward does a great job of capturing the true success of soul music’s influence on black consciousness. Ward says, “[Black radio’s] real strength… was its ability to dramatize and celebrate shared aspects of the black experience… to promote a revived sense of black identity, pride, solidarity and common consciousness” (Ward 449). In his book, Ward also points out that despite this successful development of black consciousness, there was limited success both economically and structurally on behalf of the black music industry. This shows that even though ther...
The African-American civil rights movement was a cruel time for the African American race to endure due to the harsh discrimination and segregation that they faced. This movement fought for the rights and the equality of African Americans in the United States. With all that was going on, African Americans turned to music for motivation, courage, inspiration and strength to overcome the difficult obstacles that they would soon face. “Non-violence marchers faced beating, hosing, burning, shooting, or jail with no defense other than their courage and songs” (Hast 45). “It's been a long, a long time coming/ But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will” (Cooke, Sam. A Change Is Gonna Come). Music was their greatest hope for change in the near future and is the thing that kept them fighting for what they deserved. They came together with each other due to the lyrics of many different songs that kept the civil rights movement alive and known. Music painted a vision that they could picture and look forward to; it was a dream that they could fight for. “Music empowered African Americans to hold tight to their dream of racial equality” (Jeske). A genre of music that bought society together during this movement was folk.
According to Albert Murray, the African-American musical tradition is “fundamentally stoical yet affirmative in spirit” (Star 3). Through the medium of the blues, African-Americans expressed a resilience of spirit which refused to be crippled by either poverty or racism. It is through music that the energies and dexterities of black American life are sounded and expressed (39). For the black culture in this country, the music of Basie or Ellington expressed a “wideawake, forward-tending” rhythm that one can not only dance to but live by (Star 39).
Demuynck, Julie. "English 102." : Soul Music of the 1960s Influence on Civil Rights-Julie Demuynck. N.p., 17 Mar. 2010. Web. 14 May 2014.
The purpose of this study is determine why and how African American music that’s is so deeply rooted into the community is being culturally appropriated. This is a topic that has been the on the foreground of race for years. Activists and celebrities like Adrienne Keene, DeRay McKesson, Azealia Banks, and Jesse Williams helped bring the issue into the national attention. Most of the world or better yet the appropriators have very little knowledge of what the word actually means. In order to understand the problem we must first understand the word Culture and Appropriation. Culture being defined as the beliefs, ideas, traditions, speech, and material objects associated with a particular group of people. Appropriation the action of taking something
Therefore, to endure the pains and sufferings the slaves had to use music. As illustrated above, the advent of music had far reaching results as it encouraged and gave them hope to continue working. The early music composers are the evidence of existence of early music which in turn has shaped today’s music like the blues and pop lyrics. In this case, the culture of the past has been rescued from getting lost.
The content is written in the style of the blues not only in the music but in the social perspective of the times in Harlem in respect to the sufferings and struggles of the African-American past and present experiences, and what they were going to encount...
African-American music is a vibrant art form that describes the difficult lives of African American people. This can be proven by examining slave music, which shows its listeners how the slaves felt when they were working, and gives us insight into the problems of slavery; the blues, which expresses the significant connection with American history, discusses what the American spirit looks like and teaches a great deal from the stories it tells; and hip-hop, which started on the streets and includes topics such as misogyny, sex, and black-on-black violence to reveal the reactions to the circumstances faced by modern African Americans. First is about the effect of slave music on American history and African American music. The slave music’s
Teachout, Terry. "John Hammond's jazz." Commentary 122.3 (2006): 55+. Academic OneFile. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
Breckenridge, Stan L. (2003). "The 'Path African American music for everyone. Second Edition. Iowa: Kendall-Hunt Publications, Inc. Enotes.
Since the early to mid 1800’s, music has been the most powerful vehicle of human expression. As the embodiment of love, disapproval, happiness, pain and experience, mainly life, music speaks to us because it comes from us. Everyone in the, paradigm of the human experience instinctively and systematically change the music of the past to represent the realities of the present. In this century, African American music, more specifically Soul music, has been the music that has brought to plain view evidences of our humanities – hope, hurt, joy and passion – in such a way that the world has no other choice than to feel its power and marvel in its brilliance. Although the first true pioneers of music can not be traced, some of the first people to bring the art of music to the for front can.
Powell, A. (2007). The Music of African Americans and its Impact on the American Culture in the 1960’s and the 1970’s. Miller African Centered Academy, 1. Retrieved from http://www.chatham.edu/pti/curriculum/units/2007/Powell.pdf
Small, Christopher. Music of the Common Tongue: Survival and Celebration in African American Music. Hanover, NH: U of New England, 1998. Print