Essay On African Music

Without African music we would not have some of the most popular genres of music that we have today. African music influence helped create genres like jazz, gospel, blues, soul and even hip hop and reggae. The traditional song and dance created by native Africans spread all over the world as its fusion with other type of song helped create the music we all know and love today. The spread of the African music can be traced to the slave trade that shipped Africans all over the world. The one thing many Africans were able to take with them was their musical traditions and songs. Dance, music and storytelling have been a part of African traditions for centuries and they became a very important part of their culture. Music and dance became a part …show more content…
Their music can be seen to satisfy four main functions in the fabric daily life, they are: religious, agricultural and sexual fertility, hunting, and war” (Gospel Origins). Traditional African spiritual rituals usually had some form of call and response in the ritual, call and response is a feature that many Negro spirituals and gospel music would utilize. A call and response is when a group leader would sing a part of a song or phrase and the group would respond with the next part of the song. Call and response has clear roots in gospel music as well as other forms of music where its roots can be traced back to Africa. In Africa music also helped coordinate work. Africans would sing their spirituals while at work using methods like call and response over time and with the influence of other forms of music Gospel was born. “The gospel songs created by slaves used traditional African and rhythmic influences” (Gospel Origins). The church became a place for the semi free expression of slaves. It was the only place that slaves could meet without any white supervision or fear. The songs learned in the church were usually old traditional African songs, with a modern twist and became the songs that were sung while