African American Music

Spirituals were born out of the experiences of the African Americans slaves in the United States during the 18th and 19th centuries. They often described the hardships these people faced while being enslaved, and some gave hope that one day things would get better for the slaves. From these spirituals, we can see many other forms of music influenced today, both black music and American music alike. Originally, these spirituals were only sung by the slaves acapella, without instruments to accompany their voices. As time passed, most spirituals were set to music, and arranged with instruments in mind.

Slavery has been around for centuries at a time and its origin stretches far beyond that of slavery in America. The Africans that were taken from their homes and separated from their families and friends had to endure a horrendous life following their capture, one filled with torture, pain, and utter degradation. They were stripped of numerous aspects of their culture such as their religion and native tongue and more often than not, had to embark on a metaphorical trek in order to find their identity once again as their European and American masters slowly took away all that they once had and knew. An enslaved African would need to have the determination and will to survive right from the start of their voyage to the New World.

The music that they created in addition to their trust in God allowed them to stay hopeful in the worst time of their history. Some songs were often used as resistance opportunities and coded messages that only other slaves could interpret. Harriet Tubman sang the song “Wade in the Water” when she conducted the underground railroad to signal the slaves that she led. The importance of it was that slave owners and non-slaves would only think of it as a song and not as

He learned the value of work, and responsibilities, early in his life. He was exposed to the the struggle for black rights and freedoms rather soon too. Farrakhan founded and was apart of many events that would try to gain blacks more rights.

“The Southern Landscape served as Umbilical cord to the African Americans albeit the hardships in their real or fictionalized life” The journey of the African Americans from their homeland to New World is riddled with hardship, pain and inhumane treatment meted out by their masters. Being treated as slaves; chained and violently treated they landed in the Southern part of US with hopes of building a new life, new future. They continued to struggle in their new land only to be transported from one hell to the other. Yet for the African Americans the South held their hopes and dreams. For them the South itself served as their very own identity, source of wisdom and spirituality.

Slave Struggles in the American South In the American South, slaves struggled with how they were treated and how their families got split apart and broken Slaves got chased and beaten, by their owners. They were mistreated and teased for their race. Slaves weren’t aloud to go to school and learn. Physical pain was a part of daily life for slaves. They got mistreated for the work that they gave, and deserved a better life.

African-American Literature Assignment During the1800’s and most of the 1900’s African-American people were in a period where they were looked down upon and lived through a rough period of slavery. Many families had been sold into slavery by an american man on a farm or they became slaves to be able to provide for their families. Men and women would work non-stop without complaint or their would be disciplinary actions. Mother’s would see their kids who were just born sold as a slave so that a man could make more money.

Inspired from vocal interpretations of Vodou ceremonial songs and popular secular melodies, Creole Songs of Haiti, became a popular record back in the 1950s. Not only does it include ‘legendary’ Haitian singer, dancer, and folklorist Emerante de Pradines, but also features an all-male chorus Michele Dejan Group. This album has a special place in 1950s because of the folklore movement that was taking place in Haiti. This album was one of the first to stretch the boundaries of traditional arts. This was partly due to collaborators, like the Michele Dejan Group, that would arrange traditional Haitian tunes and turn them into “liturgical or full choral settings”.1

Many African Americans who were enslaved were not educated enough or have the means to speak about what they had gone through, so many of the writings that we have access to today, are ones written by freed slaves who then became educated, or stories that have been told and were passed down to people who were literate as well as able to publish the reality of what was happening. Writings and collections such as “A Mothers Anguish”, The Anti-Slavery Harp, “To My Former Master”, and Twelve Years A Slave that were written by abolitionists, argued against slavery using emotional pathos in order to

What are The Blues? Where the Blues Started The Blues originated in the early 19th century as a form of a field hollers, a form of singing with quick or jumpy pitch changes, slaves would sing about their troubles, plans, and emotions while working in the fields in a call and response pattern. After the emancipation of the slaves, the genre almost completely vanished because of the lack of record keeping of African American culture during the 18th and 19th centuries. The lack of record keeping should have spelled the end for the Blues; however, all was not lost.

The slaves found might in combining both with their African culture or tribal and folk customs. Their religion articulated their hardship and gave them hope by promising freedom in the afterlife. In spite of not being able to obtain instruments, they utilized their feet. Additionally, “patting juba” or jubilee beating took shape into dancing, which they would dance to partnered with songs. Struggling to rise above the plantations owners control of their bodies and ever present oppression, slaves fought utter subjugation though keeping their African roots

Since the beginning of mankind music has been identified as a creative way of expressing one’s self. This, along with other uses such as soothing a mind or singing to gain closure with a situation that has occurred, can be found dating back to biblical times with more than enough examples. Fast-forward a thousand years or so and we find that although music has changed drastically, the uses of music are still universal. This is shown through multiple examples of history, one being the time period in which African slaves struggled during a rough time in America. Africans had developed their own style of music back in their homeland, so to no surprise when taken and brought to America their music followed.

Context: Identification and Explanation This passage towards the end reveals a storyteller telling the tale of slaves working through rugged conditions on a plantation. Nevertheless, they would soon go on to glory as some of which couldn’t stand the unbearable circumstances that were forced upon them. In addition, the storyteller described a few situations that slaves had to endure throughout their time spent on the plantation’s cotton field such as: nurturing an infant while proceeding in harsh labor and confliction between slave and slave owners.

Through the existence of humanity, music has been a vessel that conveys emotion, history, tales, and identity. Music has given a voice to the masses, and has allowed those who are oppressed to disagree with their oppressors in an expressive, performing format for all of society to hear. When slaves couldn’t openly speak out against their treatment, they sang their ideas and thoughts. When African-Americans suffered decades after the end of slavery with their necks in nooses, they sang of their pain and suffering. When the working class was shipped overseas to die for a war they didn’t agree with, the counterculture movement responded with songs of protest.

The life of an African-American in colonial times was anything but glamorous, working hard hours on farms or in domestic settings with hardly any praise, but they found ways to make it a little less miserable. Making African-Americans slaves was a result of the need for cheap labor in the late 17th century which caused a trade system of humans that was happening internationally. African-American slaves made up a large part the New England colonies. With the majority of them working on farms in the Chesapeake region, crops flourished, which resulted in a stable trade and economic system. The slaves didn’t get a break, working from dawn until dusk, so they had to come up with ways of passing the time.