Ma Rainey's Prove It On Me Blues

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Black art forms have historically always been an avenue for the voice; from spirituals to work songs to ballads, pieces of literature are one way that the black community has consistently been able to express their opinions and communicate to society at large. One was this has been achieved is through civil disobedience meeting civil manners. In this case, it would be just acknowledging an issue through art and literature. On the other hand, there is art with a direct purpose - literature meant to spur action; to convey anger and shock; or to prompt empathy, based on a discontent with the status quo. That is, protest literature. Through the marriage of the personal and political voices in black poetry and music, the genre functions as a form …show more content…

This is an interesting piece of protest literature because it is arguably about Gertrude “Ma” Rainey’s personal life and it creates an argument that can be disseminated into larger cultural issues related to gender and sexuality. This song is the first mention of black lesbianism in popular culture. Ma Rainey says, “The gal I was with was gone” (43) and goes on to frankly discuss her sexuality “Went out last night with a crowd of my friends/ They must’ve been women ‘cause I don’t like no men”(44) and her masculine style “It’s true I wear collar and a tie”(44). Ma Rainey uses this song to assert her dominance in expressing her gender and sexuality just as they were during a time when doing so would almost certainly end in physical violence. Not only was homosexuality and gender-bending socially and legally condemned in 1928 when this song was released, but it was also during a time when black women had next to no rights. With this song, Ma Rainey asserted her worth in a culture that tried to criminalize her very existence. Filled with explicit sexual references, it dares listeners to "find proof" of any immorality or illegality by singing, “’Cause they say I do it, ain’t nobody caught me” (44). Ma Rainey was deifying the idea that her life and her world were criminal. This can even be seen in the advertisement for the song1. Ma Rainey aligns herself directly with the speaker of the song; Rainey is shown in the ad enacting the lyrics to the song standing on a street corner dressed in a jacket, hat and tie, flirting with two women while a police officer looks on. Again, the image that she is putting out of herself makes an undeniable social and sexual statement. The lyrics of “Prove It on Me Blues” feature a lesbian heroine, but with this advertisement Rainey makes it clear that she is the person

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