African American Spirituals



    When I saw African American spirituals on the list of options, I had to choose the topic. As black people, growing up my cousins and I listened to African American spirituals a lot. My grandma used to tell us about the hidden meanings in different songs. Some of the songs are very empowering, while others have very sad connotations.

    African American spirituals come from enslaved African Americans singing in unison as a form of encouragement. Due to the time period the music came from, some people called the songs Negro Spirituals. While the slave owners tried to strip the slaves of their culture and religion, they couldn't take away their music. Music was a beautiful momentary distraction from the everyday horrors of slavery. 

A popular African American spiritual I like is "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." While it is classified as a "children's church" song, it was originally a song sung by slaves when they needed encouragement. The "he" they refer to in the song is God. Although they endured horrible treatment, the slaves still looked to God to help them in their tough times.



Some well known artists that sing African American Spirituals are, John Wesley Work, Wallis Wallis, and James Cleveland. It is believed that this music inspired similar sounds we hear in the Blues. A few differences include the call and response we hear in negro spirituals. Since there were sometimes groups of people singing and a person who would start the song there's usually a trend of call and response. An example of a modern day negro spiritual is John Legend's award winning song Glory, from the movie Selma. In the hook and chorus, John will sing "we'll cry glory" and the choir will cry out "GLORY." The call and response resembles that of a negro spiritual along with the meaning behind it.





Works Cited:

1. “African American Spirituals.” The Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197495/. 

2. Ansdiscog. “The Negro Spiritual.” THE SPIRITUALS DATABASE, 12 Feb. 2019, https://spirituals-database.com/the-negro-spiritual/. 

Comments

  1. Emilee-Claire CarterNovember 11, 2021 at 8:23 AM

    hey , I thought it was really interesting how you chose that topic. its really cool and interesting to listen to your relatives stories about your own culture.

    ReplyDelete
  2. IrianaNovember 20, 2021 at 4:18 PM

    hey chanaya, I love that you chose African American spirituals. You are right there is a lot of call and response in this genre that I hadn’t noticed. African American spirituals honestly remind me of sitting on a pew with my grandma.

    ReplyDelete

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