Exegeses

The reason of selecting this specific topic is because, academically it is a very good topic to research on as you learn a lot about the African people's music that they brought with them to make the new world. They

The reason why this topic is selected is because research wise, it refreshes the memory, and adds more information and knowledge. And academically, it is a vast topic that can be discussed numerous of times. The main element that this topic discusses about something the African Slave used to comfort each other and communicate with each other through the hardship of forced labour and the fact that they were not allowed to physically speak to one another. And they brought the introduction of drum playing to send the message across, and it evolved. This mean of communication was not only occurring in the United States which is famously known world wide who are considered as African-Americans, but the word is very general because, America is not only the United States but it involves the whole continent so it include Central America, Caribbean Islands and South America. So each of these regions of the Americas holds the origin of the new world's musical cultures. 

Historically, the slave trade discussed in this topic is still marked as the largest slave trade in history (general knowledge). Even though being forced out of their own homes to be shipped off like sardines in ships for thousands and thousands of miles across the ocean to a different environment used, as slaves did not break them, they formed a culture that is respected, loved and appreciated by untraceable number of people dead and alive.

The messages that their music has does not just touches the soul, and makes you move. The selected topic has a lot of things in common, they have the rhythm that makes me move every time one of the genres are played. The passion I have for dancing is immeasurable, and the passion leans towards the music genres that are discussed in this music blog.

This topic can be tackled in many ways and can arise great discussions that will always be captivating and interesting. The message behind this captivating topic is relatable to anyone and everyone, at any time of the day. These genres’ lyrics speak about pain, love, happiness, grieve, society, politics, sadness, sickness, wealth, loving life, hardship, success and the list goes on. Their music not only sent a message to the world but it is making the world send messages across to each other expressing their feeling, thoughts, and opinions.

The languages sung in these genre are several; languages spoken by the colonial powers, a fusion between their cultural mother tongue and the colonial powers and a combination of the cultural mother tongue, colonial powers language and the native or indigenous people of the land (in some regions). Not only did their languages infuse, but their knowledge of using each other’s instrument to make music that became their identity.

People today are forgetting about the essence of what they are listening today, they do not know that the 4 minute track they have in their ipod or CDs holds something that is worth more than the effort that is put to getting it. A lot of artist are going back to the roots of the genre and fusing is with the new, but how long will that prolong for? And this topic is a reminder to me and the readers that many people struggled to produce these magnificent music that we should hold onto dearly and not just let it fade away but the new electronically instrumental music. It is something that created history, music is one of the oldest form of communications, it should be revived and held on to so the next generations could hear the beauty of music that their ancestors created.

The contributing nodes for this blog are, youtube.com. It helped explaining how the music sounds like and help explaining what to instrument the genre emphasizes on. E-books; google search for books has contributed a lot into finding some information that I refered to for correction of the knowledge. Websites in general has helped me get images to make the blogs more visually appropriate and makes information clearer especially with maps. 

Brazail

Brazil/ Brasil, the land of the most exotic people, and most of all exotic music. Brazil and Samba go together like toast and butter, its hard to visualise one without the other. Afro-Brazilian music is defined as the folks form which developed in Brazil in the result of African cultural fusion (Fonesca, 1993) . During the Slave trade, just like Cuba, Brazil has a numerous number of African culture, roots, belief and the art of music. Brazil is a big country so the spread of slavery and the number of slaves brought into the country. to recap if you would go back to the second entry post it will show you an approximate number of slaves that were sent to Brazil.


Since Brazil and Samba are like toast and butter, let's look at where Samba originally came from. The Samba origionally came from the Southwest African Coast, which are mainly Congolese and Angolans.
The Soul of African cultures is in Salvador da Bahia, where the genre Samba was born. According to Welsh-Asante 1996, the samba went through many transformation to what they declared the rhythems to be called Samba, which Welsh Asante in his book explained where the word Samba comes from in depth. 


Therefore Samba is the genre of music that is highly African influenced, but its not the only genre, Brazil consists of many musical rhythems and genres that maybe countless, but the following are the famous genres:

• Samba
• Bahian Samba (the heavy use of different drums)

This is one of the best example to be given because this is the same band association that were in Michael Jackson's video "they don't about us"

•  Bossa Nova (Is a fusion of Samba based with a twist of Jazz)

To conclude this entry, Brazil hold vast musical genres and heritages that are African influenced because of the slave trade, it is a good element out of a horrible historical event, and gave this generation the ability to enjoy and express our emotions with their music.

Reference

• Welsh-Asante, K. (1996). African Dance: An Artistic, Historical, and Philosophical Inquiry .

French colonial Movement

Unlike the Spanish and the British the French managed to colonise few countries, the most relevent to this topic is Haiti. Haiti lies in the Caribbean Ocean, a small island that people know it mainly for the Voodoo practice or in french Vodou. Vodou is also a genre that is used during worship or rituals, the Vodou as it was mentioned in the entry ealier that it is has the Clave rythem.

The Video is a preview of how the Vodou sounds like, it has the same rhythem as the African tribal music. And the drumming is similar to the some of the Clave influenced rythems.




The next entry, will be moving down south to the Latin America, mainly Brazil which is where the last Slavery movement that will be discussed.

Spanish Movement

The Spanish movement Slavery Music has created many genres that are well known in the new world. Other than the British, the slavery route was extended into other region on the Caribbean, which are known as The Spanish Carribean. They also creared music theat captivated the world and is famous and used in the profund Ballroom Dancing.

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/dcblog/cuba/

Cuba

Starting off with the most influencial music in today's era, the country that consist of many African heritages, Cuba. Cuba has one of the largest musical genres in the Caribbean Spanish Colonies, because of the large number of African heritages and races. Cuba's African heritage's came from Congo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Benin, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Senegambians (current day Senegal and Gambia), and a small number of Sudanese (Hugh, 1971). Having that said, is it possible to imagine the fusions of cultures to form the recognisable genres?


The Most Important rythem is the Clave. The Clave is the basic foundation of most of the Cuban music and including Haiti and Bahian Brazilian or Afro-Brazilian. With Clave the following music is formed:

• Rumba- it was derived from the Congo. Underneath is an example of Congolese Rumba

• Mambo 

• Compara De Conga (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBBfbODdYY0&feature=related) unfortunately it can not be uploaded but it has a lot of emphasis on the drums

• Salsa (known worldwide)

If the the videos are heard well, you will notice a resemblence in rythem, that rythem is Clave.

Trinidad and Tabago

http://www.caribbeanprincessmusings.com/2011/04/introducing-trinidad-and-tobago.html

From Cuba we move on to Trinidad and Tabago, the home of Calypso. The slaves that were sent to Trindad and Tabago for sugar plantation, brought along their musical essence and created the music called Calypso. Calypso has a heavy use of drums which are made of steel, which have dents and these dents creates different tunes, sounds, with different amplifying levels.

here is a link of a video that shows the different tunes and levels that a calyso band plays :

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db0c4aAwUbY&feature=related

Puerto Rico

http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/notitas-de-noticias/details/us-dol-and-mine-operator-in-puerto-rico-reach-settlement-in-discrimina/5220/

From Trindad and Tabago, moving on to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico adapted so many genres from different countries such as, reggae from Jamaica, Salsa from Cuba, Calyso from Trinidad, although the one African (Slave)Influencial music that Puerto Rico has is the Bomba.

That is the end of the Spanish Caribbean, and their famous and known music. The next entry speaks about the French Colonies of Grenada and Haiti.

Reference:

Hugh, T. (1971). Cuba, or the Pursuit of freedom.

British Movement

As mentioned in the previous entry the British movement, covered The North America, and the Carribean Island. Music followed the slaves where ever they went, whether their ship was lost along the way or not; music was created.

North America

The Slaves first landed in the Colony of Viginia in 1619 by the British. And according to Shmoop University a website the earlier collect of Slave music was published in 1867, which was the Negro spiritual music which was discussed in the previous entry.


A time line of Slave Music formed in the United States:-

• African Musical Root

• Negro Spiritals (work Songs)
• Jazz

• Rural Blues (Mississippi Blues)

Here is a Famous Mississippi blues artist Mississippi Fred Mc Dowell

• Boogie-Woogie

Here is the great Martha Davis playing a boogie-woogie song

• Rhythem and Blues
• Soul

Aretha Franklin singing one of the famous love songs I say a Little prayer.

• Funk

King of Funk No One else but James Brow

• Disco

• Rap Hip-Hop & RnB

This is the famous group salt n peppa that has a great impact on Hip-hop, RnB and Rap

British Caribbean

Jamaica

While Jazz, Blue, Disco Hip-Hop and RnB were created in North America the Caribbeans has another plan up their sleeve. The Divided themselves into little sub-genre of the Caribbean Rhythem or Music.

So Jamaica are Famous of their:

• Reggae Music (it is not only music that people hear for entertainment purposes, The "Rastafarias" a form of religious belief in the Jamaican community use it chants of songs to keep close to the spirituality.

The legend Bob Marley who is known to heal the world with his music and lyrics.

• Dancehall

A preview of how islander music from Jamaica sounds like this is normally played in a spacious place with big speakers surrounded everywhere and create a dance floor or a hall hence the name Dancehall

• Ska (derived from Reggae, more up beat and a lot Skanking= where the word Ska came from)

Routes and Lands

Now, since the previous blog spoke about Negro spirituality, lets take few steps back and see where slaves came from and what music is from which region.


This Image below shows you the continent of Africa and the America(s).  (North America (USA), The Americas (In the middle which are the Carribean), Spanish America (adjecent to the Carribean) and South America.

(http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/assessment/intro-maps/09.jpg)


Okay so since you can see the map it shows specifically where the slaves came from and where they were sent to. Before proceeding into my topic to make it clear as there are some countries which were still named after its slave trade location, so to make it clear:

• Senegmabia- Both the countries of Senegal and Gambia
• Windward Coast- Ivory Coast or Cote d'Ivoire
• Gold Coast- Ghana
• Bight of Benin- Nigeria
• Bight of Biafra- Nigeria
• Central and Southeast Afria- Cameroon and North Angola

(http://www.mapsmapsflagsflags.com/map-of-africa/)

Now carrying on with the topic we 7 movements according to regions:-

1. British North America- United States
2. Spanish America- Nicaragua, Belize, Guatemala
3. British Caribbean- Jamaica, Bahamas, Barbuda, Barbados, Antigua
4. Spanish Caribbean- Cuba, Trinidad and Tabago, Puerto Rico, Santo Doming
5. French Caribbean- Guadeloupe, Grenada, St. Domingue, Martinique, Haiti
6. Dutch Caribbean- Guayana
7. Brazil- Brazil which covers (Salvador da Bahia, Rio De Janeiro)

Each movement has their own form of music and style from the beginning of the slave trade to date. Some were modified and some stayed the same. 

The next entries will briefly mention which movement created what famous and recognised  music as there is too many genres to cover.

The "Negro Spiritual" Era

Negro Spirituals are the songs that slaves were given permission to sing, which consists of two types:-

• Negro Spirituals and work
• this category of music was sung by an individual or a group of slaves which helpped them with doing the jobs given by slave drivers. This catergory was used to express their feelings while working and helped cheer each other up when their morale is low. 
• Negro Spirituals and the Underground Rail Road (UGRR)
• while the UGRR was sung when the slaves were at the UGRR trying to escape form the slave drivers. This catergory of songs speak about the obsticles on the way when the slaves were trying to run away from their slave drivers, and the UGRR was their only way to get through for them to reach freedom.

So, here are examples of how the negro spirituals and UGRR music sounds like and this is a very famous UGRR song, sung by Big Mama Thornton- Wade in the water:-

and here is the lyrics so you can read what they were going through:-

(Chorus)
Wade in the water.
Wade in the water, children.
Wade in the water.
God's gonna trouble the water.

Well, who are these children all dressed in red?
God's a-gonna trouble the water
Must be the children that Moses led
God's a-gonna trouble the water.

Chorus

Who's that young girl dressed in white
Wade in the Water
Must be the Children of Israelites
God's gonna trouble the Water.

Chorus

Jordan's water is chilly and cold.
God's gonna trouble the water.
It chills the body, but not the soul.
God's gonna trouble the water.

Chorus

If you get there before I do.
God's gonna trouble the water.
Tell all of my friends I'm coming too.
God's gonna trouble the water.

(Songs for teaching, 2012

According to Aruther C. Jones "wade in the water" the coded meaning behind the lyric is "when you escape and are attempting to connect to the next relay point on the Underground Railroad make sure that you go wade (paddle) through water to thrown the bloodhounts off your scent" (Jones, 1999). So just as it was mentioned earlier that going through the Underground railroad is the only way to get to freedom, so the Underground rail road had authority patroling them and they had bloodhounds to track the African American so they wont runaway, and bloodhounds have a very strong scencing ability, therefore they had to wade or paddle in the water to get ride of their scent so they wont be tracked down.

According to (History Official Site of Negro Spirituals, antique Gospel Music), Slavery abolished in 1865 in America, but racism was still a great factor; yet gave African Americans the oppertunity to enter university. The first Black university was Fisk University, Nashville Tennessee. From this opperunity they took every chance to venture out into the new world, where they introduced and sung the Negro Spirituals, and the group which were the first to do that was Fisk Jubilee Singers (History Official Site of Negro Spirituals, antique Gospel Music).

Although, post the abolishing of slavery, most Afriacn American did not want to be reminded of the hardship and struggles, so the people were not so proud of the spiritual Negro music. Until the 1890's when the Holiness and Sanctified churches appeared; which was highly influenced by the African tradition, that involved clapping, shouting, footstomping and Jubilee songs.

1985- after

the words and action of Dr. Martin Luther King has changed the lives of the African Americans in the United States. The scene of music Has trasformed immesly thanks to the co- founders of the gospel music it has transformed and was used as a reference to many genres to what it is now! Therefore, gospel music or Negro Spirituality is one of the most important key element in the celebration of "Black History Month", in which Negro Spirituality music and its sub-genres are played throughout the month, remembering the hardship and celebrating the success of their forefathers.


Althought the Negro spirituals were established and developed rapidly in the US, Negro spirituals also spread out into other regions of The Americas. The next entries explain how,  where, and what music is recognised generally to the world.

Refernces:


History Official Site of Negro Spirituals, antique Gospel Music. (n.d.). Retrieved 04 14, 2012, from History: www.negrospirituals.com/history.htm

Jones, A. C. (1999). Wade in the water wisdom of spirituals. Maryknoll, New York, USA.

Songs for teaching. (2012). Songs For Teaching. Retrieved 05 04, 2012, from Wade in the Water Lyrics.

History

The story of African American Music comes with four milestones (History Official Site of Negro Spirituals, antique Gospel Music):


• Before 1865


• 1865: The abolition of Slavery


• 1925: The Black renaissance


• 1985: The Dr. Martin Luther King’s day


Before 1865:


Almost all the first Africans who arrived the new world as slaves; they came from several regions of the African west coast. Their ways of living were described by slaves themselves, in some narrative. They worked in either plantations or in towns. Through out most of the colonial period, conflict to slavery among white was virtually imaginary. Settlers in the 17th and early 18th centuries came from sharply stratified societies in which wealthy savagely exploited members of the lower classes. Lacking a later generation’s belief in natural human equality, they saw little reason to question enslavement of Africans. As they sought to mold a docile labour force, planters resorted to harsh, repressive measures that include liberal use of whipping and branding (Chronology on the History Of Slavery 1619-1789, 2004).


Rural slaves used to stay after regular worship services, in churches or in plantation “praise houses:, for singing and dancing. But, slaveholders did not allow dancing and playing of the drums as they did in Africa. They had meeting place which were secretive referred to as (“camp meetings, or bush meetings”), because they needed to share their joys, pain, and hopes with others who understand what they were going through (History Official Site of Negro Spirituals, antique Gospel Music).
“… We cannot love that which we do not know”—Guinean Proverb (Floyd, 1995).


So to be able to love something we must know and understand the origin and roots. In spite of the quite apparent importance of African religion to the understanding of African rituals and its musical derivatives, music scholars have neglected to pay significant attention to it (Floyd, 1995).


“the objective of African Music is… to translate everyday experiences into living sound… to depict life, nature, or supernatural”—Frances Beby (Floyd, 1995)


In the term of understanding the nature of the African American music, it is essential to familiarise ourselves with the African religious practices.


To be able to find out about the african religion practices wait for the next entry!






Bibliography


Chronology on the History Of Slavery 1619-1789. (2004). Retrieved 03 14, 2012, from Chronology on the History Of Slavery 1619-1789: www.inncercity.org/holt/slavechron.htm

Floyd, S. A. (1995). The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States. (O. press, Ed.)

History Official Site of Negro Spirituals, antique Gospel Music. (n.d.). Retrieved 03 14, 2012, from History: www.negrospirituals.com/history.htm