THE AFRICAN AMERICANS: A MIX BETWEEN RELIGION AND
MUSIC
This essay is going to be associated with the relation
between the religion and music, especially in the context of African American
Music, like gospel and Negro Spiritual. It’ll have by scenery the work of JW Johnson
and JR Johnson, which is called “The
Books of American Negro Spirituals” and the history of gospel music.
Some people may think there’s no relation between
music and religion, but this essay is going to explain what the links among
these categories are. That’s why this problematic appears: does religion affect
the kind of music you listen to or does it not? This paper will try to argue
that in some cases like in the African American Music it does. Gospel music has
much influence of religion aspects, and generally the African American music
has a history which is involve in the culture and Christianity that is reveled
in their lyrics.
When the African slaves arrive to America once they
were kidnaped from their lands, leaving their lives, their culture, their
tribe, and their all, brought with them a wonderful piece of the African
culture as Johnson and Johnson say “The negro brought with him from Africa his
native musical instinct and talent” (Johnson and Johnson, 1969, p. 17). The
African Negro was abused in a labor sense, they felt like literally slaves and
they discover the Christianity and found in here that there exists a God who
can let them free of that abuse and cut the thread that their were attached.
The African American found in the Christianity a
refuge, they found in the church a home. They combine their African talent with
the Christianity and created with it a wonderful relief. According to Johnson and Johnson “the Negro
took complete refuge in Christianity, and the Spiritual were literally forged of
sorrow in the heat of religious fervor” (Johnson and Johnson, 1969, p. 20). The
Spiritual is highly influenced by the combination of African talent with
Christian lines.
Once they found discover the Christianity they add a
lot of that sense to their songs, they used the psalms and all they’ve learned
in the church and in the Bible and they put it on their songs, this is just
related by “the fact that the bible was the chief source of material for the
lines of these songs” (Johnson and Johnson, 1969, p. 38).
The Negro Spirituals reflect the sentiments of the
American slaves who express the begins to God, the “Hallelujahs”, they were
used for expressing personal feeling, and sometimes to express secrets
messages, covert to their owners. “Therefore, only Christian slaves understood
them, and even when ordinary words were”[1].
They associated many meanings from the Bible with their lives and their
suffering for being a slave, and this can be shown in several songs. For
example, “they had faith in God, and they associate it with the freedom of
Israel” (Johnson and Johnson, 1969, p. 21), it means, they related the issue of
Israel to their issue, both prayed for freedom and God save them.
Between 1865 and 1985 Gospel music showed those
characteristics, and it can be seen in the lyrics of the songs, like “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” and “Heaven” by JoAnne Stephenson. Then
Spiritual was evolving but Gospel music was created and taking new sceneries,
for example, “the struggle for Civil Rights, in the 1960s, negro spirituals
like “We shall overcome”, “Oh Freedom” and “This Little Light of Mine” used to
be sung”[2] ,
but this gospel also expressed music with exalted melodies.
The Dixie Hummingbirds can be considered the perfect
example of how much the religion affect the music, even in the present this
group is still active and reflect in many of their songs the Christianity, that
shows how does it remain from the epoch of the spirituals till the present.
Having all of this in mind, this essay argues that
there is a close relation among the music and the religion, especially if it is
related with the African American music. Nonetheless, there is no only with
African American music, another kind of music reflect that, in some cases a
genre reflect the absence of religion, which is a relation with religion too,
it is the heavy metal, or reggaeton, these kind of music can´t be more away
from religion, it is the opposite of gospel music, instead having a Christian
message it has another way to see it, like secular or profane. 
Finally and to conclude, the essay exposes reasons
that explain a close relation between music and religion, which can’t be better
showed that in the gospel music, which is based in lines of the Bible and mixes
of African rituals songs with Christian songs and this kind of music is the
example that try to answer why the religion affect the kind of music you listen
to.
Bibliography
“A
History of Gospel Music”.
2004. M, Norris. Accessed from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4233793
“The Books of American Negro Spirituals”. 1969. J. W.,
Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson. Da Capo
Press. New York. Accessed from http://books.google.es/books?hl=es&lr=&id=cP-vouiZ0JsC&oi=fnd&pg=PA11&dq=the+books+of+american+negro+spiritual&ots=AyTiXbXTEC&sig=7mW9glaiLtxJ0NK7YjY5cwPB_5I#v=onepage&q&f=false
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