Comparing How Gospel, Jazz, Hip Hop Music Express Race, Culture, And Identity

Sarah Wilson

How Gospel, Jazz, Spiritual, and Rap Music Express Race, Culture, and Identity African American jazz singer, Billie Holiday, once said, "If I am going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all." This demonstrates how African Americans wanted their own voice through music. During the Civil Rights Movement, people of color were not represented, and they would face extreme violence if they tried to stand up for themselves, so they had to find other ways to do that. They were able to voice their opinion in a way that people could not help but listen to, with rap, jazz, spiritual, and gospel music. Although they had to face many hardships, music was the one thing they could count on to help them fight for justice.

To begin, African Americans had spiritual beliefs that eventually turned into Christianity, so they started to hold their own services. They added to the services with their culture by using gospel music. They would do things in services that white people would not conventionally do such as add things by yelling, "Hallelujah" in the middle of the gospel song or wave their hands and stomp their feet to show the importance of the service (Maultsby & Stewart 7 & 8). This shows how people of color were able to express their culture by adding things to the music and changing the way white people would normally worship at a church service. Secondly, African Americans used rap, gospel, spiritual, and jazz music to display the way the people from Africa sing and make music. To differ from standard "European" music, African Americans used their voice to produce "groans," vocal "slides," and "moans," similarly to how people in Africa originally did (Maultsby & Stewart 18). This demonstrates how black people could express their race and culture by using African influences and inserting them to white and European music. To conclude, African Americans were able to take things that were used in their culture and add it to basic American and European music to express their race and

During the civil rights movement, black people had to show their identity and represent themselves in a way that would not cause harm to anyone, so they would do that in music. African Americans used songs to represent what they were going through to show their identity. A woman named "Jamila Jones" professionally sang with the "Montgomery Gospel Trio" as a teenager (Music in the Civil Rights Movement 4). She attended a "nonviolent activist training," but white people called the police on them, and the police turned off all the lights in the building where the training was being held. "Jones" began to sing the song "We Shall Overcome," however, she added "We are not afraid" to the song (Music in the Civil Rights Movement 4). Other people at the training joined her in song, the volume of the singing grew louder and eventually the police officers, who had weapons and were usually violent, came up to Jones and said while trembling, "do you have to sing so loud" (Music in the Civil Rights Movement 4). "Jones" explained that then she had learned the impact music can have on someone (Music in the Civil Rights Movement 4). This explains how people of color were able to use gospel music to show their identity by making an impact on the police officer. Next, jazz music gave African Americans the chance to express their identity by telling stories and experiences through songs. Jazz allowed people of color to express their