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African American influence on American music
The Influence of African Americans on Music
Jazz and african american history
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The song “Strange Fruit” was a landmark song at the time as it was a call to attention of the racial segregation and the injustices committed in not only the south but all across the Unites States. This song is best known as being performed by Billie Holiday in 1939. However, it has more history to it than that. The song was originally written as a protest poem by Jewish high school teacher Abel Meeropol (Holiday). He wrote it as a poem protesting the racism in America and specifically the lynching of African Americans in the south. The lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in 1930 influenced Meeropol in writing this poem which was originally titled “Bitter Fruit” published in The New York Teacher in 1937 (Holiday). How the song got to Holiday …show more content…
Using the sample by Nina Simone on his track took it to another place, and put listeners into a different mindset with it. He could have referenced the poem in the song or titled it Strange Fruit, but having the opening of the song be the first lines of the poem takes it into a different space. Any song that has a sample of strange fruit or references it is normally a song discussing some form of racial injustice. West took this song and discussed New Age racial injustice and told a story from his own perspective. He uses Nina Simone’s cover of the song instead of Billie Holidays version of it as Nina Simone was more well known for her civil rights anthems. “Anthems as "Mississippi Goddam," "Old Jim Crow" and "I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free" (Kaufman). Everything that West says in this song draws some parallels to “Strange Fruit”. Blood on The Leaves is talking about a past relationship, but some of the lyrics can be related to feeling like a slave in the eyes of the media and New Age Lynch Mobs. Kanye says in the beginning “And all I want is what I can’t buy now”. As someone who is as wealthy as he is, the thought that he cannot purchase something shows that it isn’t something you can purchase with money, but that it is something that he wants, but will never be able to have because of the situation he is in now. He has become a
“Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday conveys the inhumane, gory lynchings of African-Americans in the American South, and how this highly unnatural act had entrenched itself into the society and culture of the South, almost as if it were an agricultural crop. Although the song did not originate from Holiday, her first performance of it in 1939 in New York City and successive recording of the song became highly popular for their emotional power (“Strange fruit,” 2017). The lyrics in the song highlight the contrast between the natural beauty and apparent sophistication of the agricultural South with the brutal violence of lynchings. Holiday communicates these rather disturbing lyrics through a peculiarly serene vocal delivery, accompanied by a hymn-like
The general point of the song “Alabama” by Neil Young is a very powerful song and has multiple meanings.The idea of racism is spoke out. The song had a negative reaction from the southerners. “Swing low Alabama” let them be equal. Get the money to do what you need to do to end segregation. Neil is hoping that the message from his song will opens people's eyes and after all of this is over Alabama will finally have peace and everyone will be equal.
In 1933 Billie audition as a dancer when she was 18, but the judges said she was not good enough so they asked her if she could sing-she could. In 1939 Billy sang at a café called Café Society and the song was “Strange Fruit”. Holiday wanted the song to be recorded but it was forbidden because it was “too inflammatory” Strange Fruit is a song about racism. She did not want to sing it on many radio stations because they banned all the intense words in the song. She could have been killed by the Koo Klucks Klan if she sang that song. Promoters objected Billie Holiday because of her race. The style of her voice-often tries to sound like a horn instrument because she likes the sliding sound. She refused to sing like other singers. Billie slyly said on a radio interview,”I always wanted to sound like an instrument.” She changed her name to Billie Holiday because her favorite film star, Billie Dove. In 1944 Billie Holiday received the Esquire Magazine Gold Award for Best Leading Female Vocalist. She would then receive some more awards in the following years to come. She got the nickname “Lady Day”. She was discovered by John Hammond, a young producer at Monette’s, a Harlem night club. When he heard Billie’s voice he was
Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit “is probably one of the greatest songs composed telling the chilling story about lynching. A little unknown fact is that it was written by a Jewish man by the name of Abel Meeropol. Initially “Strange Fruit” originated as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, as a protest against lynching of African Americans. Meeropol meet Holiday in a bar, where she read the poem, and decided to make the poem into a song. The record made it to No. 16 on the charts in July 1939. This song is probably Holiday’s most famous song she ever sung throughout her whole life. In the end Strange fruit forces listeners to relive the tragic horrors of living in America as an African American. The vivid lyrics paints a picture that causes a person
Billie Holiday was an African-American jazz singer and songwriter.Billie Holiday was the biological child of Sadie Fagan and Clarence Holiday. Sadie was thirteen when she had Billie. At the same time, Clarence was an irresponsible father who did not care about his daughter's Billie. From Billie's early life, she grew up in a broken family. In other word, she had no father to support throughout her childhood and her mother who was struggling financially as a teen mom that often neglect the time to take care of Billie. Therefore, Billie's childhood was missing love from both parents. Aside from that, Billie traveled from place to place along with her mother in order to survive. For example, Billie's mother worked as a server on the passenger railroad. Holiday was take care by her half-sister aunt named Martha Miller. Holiday was frequently running away from school. As a result of that, she was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd for nine months starting from March 19, 1925.Later on, she was released on October 3, 1925 to her mother who had opened a restaurant called East Side Grill. As a young girl, she did not receive much of formal school and Holiday was forced to drop out of school at the age of eleventh. Holiday's mom discovered that her neighbor named Wilbur Rich was raping her daughter's Billie. Once again, Billie was placed to the House of the Good Shepeard in protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. She was then released in 1927 and worked as an errand in a brothel. One year later, Billie's mother moved on New York City to find a better job as a prostitute in Harlem. On 1929, Billie also moved to Harlem to become a prostitute. Billie was fourteen when she was prostitute for $5 per client. Unfortunately, the...
In the story “Peaches”, Reginald McKnight introduces his main characters, one being Marcus. Marcus is a good guy, but he is described in many different ways, due to his bad temper and immaturity level. Throughout the work, author Reginald McKnight takes great care to illustrate situations and describe feelings and personalities that many men experience. This way, even though Marcus is having trouble controlling himself around other people and arrogant at times, he still tries to be a better person for Rita and for himself. He does this by going out of the country to experience other cultures and enhance his morals. Although Marcus is strong and eager, he is actually an easily irascible, impatient, immature, manipulative, unstable man whose inexperience does not prepare him for the frequent mishaps in his life.
In the story “Peaches”, Reginald McKnight introduces his main characters, one being Marcus. Marcus is a good guy, but he is described in different ways, due to his confidence and insecurity. Throughout the work, author Reginald McKnight takes great care to illustrate situations and describe feelings and personalities that many men experience. This way, even though Marcus is having trouble controlling himself around other people and arrogant at times, he still tries to be a better person for Rita and for himself. He does this by going out of the country to experience other cultures and enhance his morals. On one level Marcus demonstrates that he is incredibly confident, on the other level he shows signs of being insecure, manipulative, unstable and incapable of achieving change.
In Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday, and Chapter 15 in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, they both represent the idea of racial mob lynching. In the song, there is a “fruit for the crows to pluck” when the Old Sarum in To Kill a Mockingbird said that Atticus “[knew] what [they] want.” So the Old Sarum asked Atticus to “get aside from the door” since they “Called ‘em off on a snipe hunt.” After the fruit in Strange Fruit suddenly smelled like blood and flesh, the fruit appeared as if it could be plucked by crows.This illustrates how the Old Sarum, a mob of white people who despise blacks, attempted to storm inside the Maycomb county’s Prison so that they could kill Tom Robinson, who was a African American accused of crime.
He may just seem like another rapper to you but if you actually listen to his lyrics you can see he’s not like any rapper out there. His name is Kanye West and he was born in Chicago Illinois. He grew up in the “ghetto” and learned to appreciate life. He didn’t learn to really, truly appreciate life until October of 2002. Driving back to his hotel late one night after a recording session, the new-coming rap/hip-hop artist was involved in a devastating, near fatal car accident. The crash left him with a broken jaw in three places and an appreciation for life. Just weeks after being released from the hospital he recorded his first major hit, “Through the Wire,” with his mouth still wired shut. He records every song like its going to be his last song and that makes every song better than the last. He’s not only a rap artist but also a producer. He has been responsible for being behind songs like Jay-Z’s Izzo, Girls, Girls, Girls, The Takeover, and 03 Bonnie and Clyde.
(Singer 216) With minstrel shows being popular at the time along with going “black face” on stage to make fun of colored people, its no surprise this song was intended to be humorous. The original idea for the song came from Dutch Shultz, the “financial angel” for Connie’s Inn where Hot Chocolates was playing. (Singer 216) He came up with the idea of the “funny number” and directed writer Andy Razaf to come up with the Lyrics. Razaf didn’t like the idea of the song but since he was essentially forced to write it, he did it his own way. He made the song about intraracial prejudice between blacks of lighter and darker skin and in doing that went behind Shultz back who just wanted the song for its comic appeal. The song was received well though, by people of all color, and Razaf unknowingly wrote America’s “first racial prejudice song”. (Singer 219) The song ended up being a hit and in 1929 Louis Armstrong recorded his own version of the song; however, in Armstrong’s version he “…dropped the verse and turned the chorus into a threnody for blacks of all shades.” (Teachout 139) Louis took the original songs hidden meaning and highlighted it in a way that made it more noticeable but still subtle. He turned it into a song that, as Ralph Ellington put it, “demanded action, the kind of which I was incapable of” in
In today’s society people are judged primarily on their looks and the amount of money that they have. As we take a look into the short story, “Wild Plums”, one can agree that the primary purpose of this short story is to illustrate how people believe they are inferior to others because of the way they look or act. The main family in the story thinks they are too good to go pick wild plums with the slumps and they think they are too good to be around them.
During this few days, the class focused on two poems Strange Fruit and Primping in the Rearview Mirror. Both poems had interesting stories and meaningful messages behind them. I particular liked reading Strange Fruit by Abel Meeropol. Even though the poem was heavy as it describes the horrendous lynching of black men in the South during the 1940s. I think the poem, both when it was originally written and now, allows it readers to truly think about the serious role that racism had in the American society.
Many years ago, Abel Meeropol famously wrote “Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees...” The purpose of this poem was to describe the heinous lynching of African Americans in the south. They would be strung up to a tree and hung in front of crowds of hateful people spewing ignorance with no regard for human life outside of their own race. Sometimes their neighbors and loved ones would be present as well, while they struggled to free themselves and gasp for air before they eventually die. Although lynching is better known as the act of hanging a body up to a tree, there are also other acts that fit into the lynching
Strange fruit is and amazing dark poem told by Billie Holiday as very powerful song. Strange Fruit is a terrifying protest against the inhumane acts of racism. Strange Fruit was about the murders and lynching going on in the south at the time from public hangings to burnings. The south has a cruel and terrifying past that haunts the very people who still live down there and remind them that only a short time ago was no one prosecuted for killing someone of dark skin since whole towns were involved in it.
After the discovery of America, new food plants became known to European people. The pineapple symbolizes balmy tropical lands and leisurely life on tropical islands. The pineapple, as well as other agricultural crops such as maize, potatoes, beans, peanuts, and tobacco, originated in America and were unknown to people of the old World.