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Music on the cultural identity
Blues influence on hip hop
Music impact on american culture
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The soundtrack of slavery, the rhythms and sounds of the fields, enriched American culture and helped to form the American identity. The cross-fertilization between Africa and America that came about through the slave trade impacted many areas of American culture, but none more so than the development of new genres of music including jazz, gospel, and above all else, the blues. The blues, which arose deep in the region known as the Mississippi Delta, has helped shape the American identity by providing a distinct sound incorporated into many genres of music and by providing a voice for those that previously had none. Music helps define culture, and America is no exception. Used to express the thoughts and feelings of the masses, and, sometimes, to influence them, music leaves a lasting impact on all it touches. Genres of music evolve with the growth, creation, and synthesis of various subcultures. For example, the music form known as “the blues” pervades American music, helping to frame jazz, rhythm-and-blues, rock, hip-hop, gospel, pop, and other American musical genres. The blues permeates the soundtrack of movies, TV, and more (Thompson & Haquard, 126-139). It is no exaggeration to say that blues is a staple of the American identity, one whose influence shows no sign of diminishing. As director Martin Scorsese wrote, “The blues have great emotional resonance and are the foundation for American popular music.” (Springer, “Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: A Film Tribute to America’s Great Musical Tradition.") The locale where musical sub-genres have evolved is closely related to key features of the music played. The blues originated in the oppressive and destructive experiences of African Americans in the post-emancipat... ... middle of paper ... ...ongs are playing a strong and vital role in our struggle. They give the people new courage and a sense of unity. I think they keep alive a faith, a radiant hope, in the future, particularly in our most trying hours.” It is difficult to imagine American culture without the influence of blues. Thousands of hit songs, hundreds of movie sound tracks, and countless performances of all types have been enriched by the music of poor black farmers struggling to survive in the Mississippi Delta. This unique cultural legacy, spawned in the poorest and most segregated corner of America, has shaped the world’s perception of our country. In the blues we can still hear the tragedy of poverty, the work songs of slaves, the rhythms of the Mississippi, and the struggle for survival that formed the culture of the Delta – and that in turn helped form the identity we know as American.¬¬
For centuries, music has been defined by history, time, and place. To address this statement, Tom Zè, an influential songwriter during the Tropicália Movement, produced the revolutionary “Fabrication Defect” to challenge oppression as a result from the poor political and social conditions. On the other hand, David Ramsey discusses, in mixtape vignettes, the role of music to survive in New Orleans’ violent setting. Furthermore, “The Land where the Blues Began”, by Alan Lomax, is a film and perfect example to understand under what musical conditions profound ways of communication are made to stand the hard work of cotton plantations. As a result, music plays a crucial role in the sources’ cultures and its creation relies on particular conditions such as the social
Some scholars theorize that the Middle Passage to the Americas was so traumatic that most African influence was eradicated, and that few traces of Africa exist in African-American music. This “cultural tabulala [sic] rasa” theory is rightfully rejected by many scholars (Wilson 3). The inflow of African people to the New World was brought on by the existence of slavery, and resulted in the creation of a sort of extension of the African continent in a different hemisphere. In his article “The Significance of the Relationship Between [sic] Afro-American Music and West African Music,” music scholar Olly Wilson refutes the tabula rasa theory, and provides extensive examples of the ties that continue to exist between the two distant geographical regions. Another prominent scholar who recognizes the integration of African elements in American musics is Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Though his much deeper and more analytical approach to African musics is divergent from Wilson’s, both scholars acknowledge African diaspora musics and examine them in different ways based on different criteria.
Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans. 2nd ed. 1971. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1986. 367, 404-5, 407, 430, 437. Print.
Blues has played an extreme role in todays’ music. The music genre of blues, helps us express ourselves in which you can feel it from the ubiquitous in the jazz to the blues scale and the specific chord progressions. To start off, the blues is musically originated by African Americans in the deep South of the United States. Growing up in a southern household, I was used to listening to a variety music, but blues was always most listened to. Every time I listen to blues, the lyrics often deal with personal adversity, and it goes far beyond pity.
Roy, W. (2010). Reds, whites, and blues social movements, folk music, and race in the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
In “Blame It On the Blues” the author Angela Davis, argues against critics, like Samuel Charters and Paul Oliver, who say that the Blues lacks social commentary or political protest, by saying that the Blues was a subtle protest against gender and racial inequality. Davis uses various songs from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith to prove this.
Well, my essay is about Mississippi. It’s a great place to be. There all kinds of events you can participate in. Blues music its part of Mississippi’s culture. This music comes from slaves in the fields, singing about their struggles, their conditions and their sorry. Many of the songs carried secret messages of escaping the plantation life. The music told of life experiences as slaves knew them. The stories sung about in their music went back before the Civil War and even to the western coast of Africa where men, women and children were captured and sold into slavery and brought to America as slave laborers to work in Southern plantations. The Mississippi Delta is considered to be the birthplace of the Blues, with the new music coming out of the Blues-Rock and Roll. The earliest blues musicians came from the Mississippi Delta region, where the uniquely form of music was born. These early musicians in turn inspired blues greats like Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Bobby “Blue” Bland, who eventually took the blues northward to Chicago and contributed further to t...
It is very difficult to determine the exact origin of the blues. Although its earliest roots evolved from West Africa, the blues probably emerged in the United States around the 1800's relative to the African America plight into slavery, as spirituals, work songs, and "arhoolies" (traditional, vernacular, or regional music) (The Arhoolie Foundation). All had some form of influence on the blues as a distinct form of music. The emergence of the blues would have occurred with the social and economic circumstances of the African Americans. (Crosby) Blues was a way of communicating discontent. But it was the spiritual blues that was the music of an unhappy people - the music that told of death, and suffering, and a cry for some hope of freedom and liberation from their torment. Yes, the slaves did get their freedom but were still bound to their "Chains" by racism.
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).
Others do not explore the significance of how blues music relates to the commonly-agreed-upon basic themes of individualism and alienation. The chief value of living with music lies in its power to give us an orientation in time. In doing so, it gives connotation to all those indefinable aspects of experience, which nevertheless helps us make what we are. Works Cited • http://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/marie.dybala/engl-1302/research-paper-assignments-and-documents/baldwin-articles-on-sonnys-blues/Sherard%20Sonnys%20Bebop.pdfhttp://cai.ucdavis.edu/uccp/sblecture.html#bebop • http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/1321/1353476/essays/jbgioia.htmlhttp://cai.ucdavis.edu/uccp/sonnylinks.html • http://introduction-to-literature.wikispaces.com/Baldwin+and+Sonny's+Blues http://davinci.choate.edu/dloeb/webpages/SummerSchool/sonny'sblues.htm http://www.marinaskendzic.com/essayscriticalpieces/baldwinssonnysblues.html • http://www.jstor.org/pss/2901246
The development of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the late 1940s and early 1950s by young African Americans coincided with a sensitive time in America. Civil rights movements were under way around the country as African Americans struggles to gain equal treatment and the same access to resources as their white neighbors. As courts began to vote in favor of integration, tensions between whites and blacks escalated. As the catchy rhythm of Rock ‘n’ Roll began to cross racial boundaries many whites began to feel threatened by the music, claiming its role in promoting integration. This became especially problematic as their youth became especially drawn to ...
The blues, a uniquely American art form, was born on the dusty street corners of the Deep South in the late 1800s. An evolution of West African music brought to the United States by slaves, created the blues which was a way for black people in the south to express their hardships, heartbreaks, religion, passion, and politics that they experienced in their day-to-day lives. The majority of blues songs were never written down, let alone recorded, but instead, were passed on from one musician to another and played on a variety of instruments including a number of stringed instruments, harmonicas, and horns. Once blues songs began to be officially recorded in the 1920s, the most frequently found instruments were guitars and pianos. However, the basic 12-bar style and three.-chord progression have remained the same throughout the years and continue to be key components of the blues.
As it mentioned above, the title itself, draws attention to the world-renowned music created by African Americans in the 1920s’ as well as to the book’s jazz-like narrative structure and themes. Jazz is the best-known artistic creation of Harlem Renaissance. “Jazz is the only pure American creation, which shortly after its birth, became America’s most important cultural export”(Ostendorf, 165). It evolved from the blues
Blues is a popular music style even today. It is popular because of its characteristic style that later developed other styles and subsets of the primitive blues style and its ability to appeal to a larger audience; therefore, placing the music style into the light of mainstream society. Amiri Baraka, in his work Blues People, says that the blues is a product of the “Negro’s American Experience.” In addition, he adds that the blues “developed as a response to the Negro’s adaption to and adoption of America; it was also a music that arose due to Negro’s peculiar position in this country.” It would be difficult to argue that the blues are not a product of the African American experience. While there are instances where white American individuals
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