Refuting the myth that Black American music/culture is "Europeanized".

[IllmaticDelta]

What yall know about the African influence and reinterpretation of Christianity by the slaves in America?

African American Christianity, Pt. I:
To the Civil War

The story of African-American religion is a tale of variety and creative fusion. Enslaved Africans transported to the New World beginning in the fifteenth century brought with them a wide range of local religious beliefs and practices. This diversity reflected the many cultures and linguistic groups from which they had come. The majority came from the West Coast of Africa, but even within this area religious traditions varied greatly. Islam had also exerted a powerful presence in Africa for several centuries before the start of the slave trade: an estimated twenty percent of enslaved people were practicing Muslims, and some retained elements of their practices and beliefs well into the nineteenth century. Catholicism had even established a presence in areas of Africa by the sixteenth century.

UVA Lib.
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Funeral in Guinea, west Africa, drawn by a French painter, ca. 1789 (detail)

UVA Lib.
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"Heathen practices in funerals," drawn by a Baptist missionary in Jamaica, ca. 1840 (detail)

Preserving African religions in North America proved to be very difficult. The harsh circumstances under which most slaves lived—high death rates, the separation of families and tribal groups, and the concerted effort of white owners to eradicate "heathen" (or non-Christian) customs—rendered the preservation of religious traditions difficult and often unsuccessful. Isolated songs, rhythms, movements, and beliefs in the curative powers of roots and the efficacy of a world of spirits and ancestors did survive well into the nineteenth century. But these increasingly were combined in creative ways with the various forms of Christianity to which Europeans and Americans introduced African slaves. In Latin America, where Catholicism was most prevalent, slaves mixed African beliefs and practices with Catholic rituals and theology, resulting in the formation of entirely new religions such as vaudou in Haiti (later referred to as "voodoo"), Santeria in Cuba, and Candomblé in Brazil. But in North America, slaves came into contact with the growing number of Protestant evangelical preachers, many of whom actively sought the conversion of African Americans.

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Slaves baptized in a Moravian congregation, drawing entitled "Excorcism-Baptism of the Negroes" in a German history of the Moravians (United Brethren) in Pennsylvania, 1757 (detail)

Religion and Slavery

In the decades after the American Revolution, northern states gradually began to abolish slavery, and thus sharper differences emerged in the following years between the experiences of enslaved peoples and those who were now relatively free. By 1810 the slave trade to the United States also came to an end and the slave population began to increase naturally, making way for the preservation and transmission of religious practices that were, by this time, truly "African-American."

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UVA Lib.

Slave preaching on a cotton plantation near Port Royal, South Carolina, engraving in The Illustrated London News, 5 Dec. 1863
On Secret Religious Meetings
"A Negro preacher delivered sermons on the plantation. Services being held in the church used by whites after their services on Sunday. The preacher must always act as a peacemaker and mouthpiece for the master, so they were told to be subservient to their masters in order to enter the Kingdom of God. But the slaves held secret meetings and had praying grounds where they met a few at a time to pray for better things." Harriet Gresham, born a slave in 1838 in South Carolina, as reported by her interviewer, ca. 1935


"[The plantation owner] would not permit them to hold religious meetings or any other kinds of meetings, but they frequently met in secret to conduct religious services. When they were caught, the 'instigators'—known or suspected—were severely flogged. Charlotte recalls how her oldest brother was whipped to death for taking part in one of the religious ceremonies. This cruel act halted the secret religious services." Charlotte Martin, born a slave in 1854 in Florida, as reported by her interviewer, 1936


"Tom Ashbie's [plantation owner] father went to one of the cabins late at night, the slaves were having a secret prayer meeting. He heard one slave ask God to change the heart of his master and deliver him from slavery so that he may enjoy freedom. Before the next day the man disappeared . . . When old man Ashbie died, just before he died he told the white Baptist minister, that he had killed Zeek for praying and that he was going to hell." Rev. Silas Jackson, born a slave in 1846 or 1847 in Virginia, as transcribed by his interviewer, 1937
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more excerpts
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Julia Cart

A Gullah "praise house," a surviving example of slaves' secret meeting places, and its pastor, Rev. Henderson; St. Helena Island, South Carolina, 1995

This transition coincided with the period of intense religious revivalism known as "awakenings." In the southern states increasing numbers of slaves converted to evangelical religions such as the Methodist and Baptist faiths. Many clergy within these denominations actively promoted the idea that all Christians were equal in the sight of god, a message that provided hope and sustenance to the slaves. They also encouraged worship in ways that many Africans found to be similar, or at least adaptable, to African worship patterns, with enthusiastic singing, clapping, dancing, and even spirit-possession. Still, many white owners insisted on slave attendance at white-controlled churches, since they were fearful that if slaves were allowed to worship independently they would ultimately plot rebellion against their owners. It is clear that many blacks saw these white churches, in which ministers promoted obedience to one's master as the highest religious ideal, as a mockery of the "true" Christian message of equality and liberation as they knew it.
In the slave quarters, however, African Americans organized their own "invisible institution." Through signals, passwords, and messages not discernible to whites, they called believers to "hush harbors" where they freely mixed African rhythms, singing, and beliefs with evangelical Christianity. It was here that the spirituals, with their double meanings of religious salvation and freedom from slavery, developed and flourished; and here, too, that black preachers, those who believed that God had called them to speak his Word, polished their "chanted sermons," or rhythmic, intoned style of extemporaneous preaching. Part church, part psychological refuge, and part organizing point for occasional acts of outright rebellion (Nat Turner, whose armed insurrection in Virginia in 1831 resulted in the deaths of scores of white men, women, and children, was a self-styled Baptist preacher), these meetings provided one of the few ways for enslaved African Americans to express and enact their hopes for a better future.

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nineteen/nkeyinfo/aareligion.htm


what yall know about the African based frenzy dance known as the "Ring Shout" basically being the origin of "getting the holy ghost" action

Hear that Dembow/reggaeton beat they're beating/stomping out

 

[Blackking]

From another thread where I posted in regards to church/religion...



Yep. Negro Spirutuals and it's later offshoot, Gospel were influenced by African vocal and performance styles.

Samuel A. Floyd, Jr. describes these components

as the characterizing and foundational elements of African-American music: calls, cries and hollers; call-and-response devices; additive rhythms and polyrhythms; heterophony, pendular thirds, blue notes, bent notes and elisions; hums, moans, grunts, vocables and other rhythmic-oral declamations, interjections and punctuations; off-beat melodic phrasings and parallel intervals and chords; constant repetition of rhythmic and melodic figures and phrases (from which riffs and vamps would be derived); timbral distortions of various kinds; musical individuality within collectivity; game rivalry; hand-clapping, foot-patting and approximations thereof; apart playing; and the metronomic pulse that underlies all African-American music

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.23...39832&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&uid=70






There are many old descriptions from whites and middle class blacks on it:

A Historical Perspective on Teaching Controversial Aspects of African-American Music



http://www.echo.ucla.edu/Volume6-issue2/sam/wright.html

yo,


I appreciate this post actually...



I used to go hard at church ( and i stil do )

but I've been attending ately...... just for the fukk of it,

I gave it some thought, now that I been going to church -- the way they do it, is NOT like the way white churches do it. It's not my style of stuff personally, but it's not cacerish.



However, some of the ideas are directly from Europeans. So it's a wash. Imagine if they practiced in a African way but had proper ideas

 

[IllmaticDelta]

One can point to European influence on instruments used by AA's when they played blues, but then they'll have to answer to these early AA instruments bought to America by Africans. The Banjo included...

Banjo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo

Mouth bow

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Musical_bow.html

Diddley bow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diddley_bow

The Quills(pan pipes)

The Quills are a early American folk panpipe, first noted in the early part of the 19th century among Afro-American slaves in the south. They are aerophones, and fall into the panpipe family. They are assumed to be of African origin, since similar instruments are found in various parts of Africa, and they were first used by 1st and 2nd generation Africans in America.
http://www.sohl.com/Quills/Quills.htm


Kazoo

http://www.kazoos.com/historye.htm

Blues Fife

http://www.academia.edu/922424/_Stu...ship_on_North_Mississippi_Blues_Fife_and_Drum

All of these instruments payed a key role in the early development of the blues...
"The Memphis Jug Band was an American musical group in the late 1920s and early to mid 1930s.The band featured harmonicas, violins, mandolins, banjos, and guitars, backed by washboards, kazoo, and jugs blown to supply the bass; they played in a variety of musical styles."

To add to that..


Yes..the banjo is from Africa but it's not obvious to many because they associate African music with drums

The Old Plantation is an American folk art watercolor likely painted in the late 18th century on a South Carolina plantation.[3][4][5] It is notable for its early date, its credible, non-stereotypical depiction of slaves on the North American mainland, and the fact that the slaves are shown pursuing their own interests. The artist has been identified as South Carolina slaveholder John Rose, and the painting may depict his plantation in what is now Beaufort County.

Description and interpretation
Further information: Stick dance (African-American)
The painting depicts African American slaves between two small outbuildings of a plantation sited on a broad river.[6] The Old Plantation is the only known painting of its era that depicts African Americans by themselves, concerned only with each other,[7] though its central activity remains obscure. Some writers have speculated that the painting depicts a marriage ceremony, with the attendant tradition of jumping the broom. However, scholars have suggested that the subjects are performing a secular dance: western African dance patterns traditionally include sticks and a variety of body positions. The headdresses pictured are of West African origin.[8]

The painting features two male musicians, one of whom is playing a stringed instrument that resembles a Yoruba molo;[5][9] the body of this instrument seems to be a hollow gourd.[10] The molo is a precursor to the banjo, and this is the earliest known American painting to picture a banjo-like instrument.[11] The second musician is playing a percussion instrument that may be a Yoruba gudugudu.[5][9] The two women hold what look like scarves, but are actually sheguras, rattles made of a gourd enclosed in a net of variable length into which hard objects have been woven.[12]


even the original playing style (clawhammer) is African

All That Twang, What is That Thang?: A Brief History of the Banjo and It's Major Changes Through Time

Though many people think that the banjo is the all-American instrument, born and developed in the good ol' U. S. of A., they're only telling you a partial truth and a very small part of the whole story. What they are thinking of is the 5-string banjo donned by such greats as Earl Scruggs and Bela Fleck. It's the most prevalent type of banjo in many popular styles of American music such as Bluegrass, Dixieland, and Country, so naturally, being exposed to no other types of banjos, one would assume that the 5-string IS the banjo.

In reality the banjo originated hundreds of years ago somewhere on the African continent. These instruments were quite simple and rough - an animal skin tacked on to a hollowed half of a gourd with three or four strings stretched over a planed stick (keep in mind, too, that there were no such things as frets back then). The strings were often made from waxed horsehair or gut. One name for this instrument was the banjar. (Isn't it interesting that the pronunciation of this native-African word from ages ago is still being used by the back-woodsy American folk of today?) Anyway…

The banjo didn't actually make it to America until the African slaves were forced to come here in the 17th Century. Because the materials used to make a crude version of this instrument were readily available, it spread among the plantation workers in the South quite easily. Eventually, in the early 1800's, a few whites learned to play, such as the notable Joel Walker Sweeney, who learned the instrument from the people working on his father's farm. Because the instrument was a novelty to many Americans, Sweeney was able to tour the East Coast in the 1830's with some success. He played in a style that is similar to what is known today as "clawhammer" or "frailing." This technique was the standard for the Africans of the day. Clawhammer (my personal favorite - you should all try it some time!) is a very rhythmic way of playing. It is achieved by striking down on the strings with the nail of one of the fingers and plucking back up with the thumb. It is not understood for sure who developed the short fifth string, but by this time it was definitely in use.

As the Civil War rolled around, some musicians (probably influenced by the guitar) turned away from the old style of playing and started finger-picking the banjo. Players such as Frank Converse started publishing instructional books in this new style and thus it gained great popularity rather quickly. Interestingly, the people isolated in the Appalachian Mountains were not privy to this new technique and, as a result, we still today have the old African style of playing represented in clawhammer.

Simultaneously, major changes to the banjo were happening elsewhere. Having had much success in America, the minstrel performers of the 1830's, 40's and 50's traveled over to Europe and the British Isles. As the popularity of the banjo spread there, novel approaches to the instrument were developed. By the early 20th Century, these changes had taken hold both in Europe and in America. The most important invention was the use of metal strings and a pick (also called a plectrum). With the use of a pick, the need for the short fifth string was no more, so new banjos were made with the same neck length, but with only four strings. This came to be known as the Plectrum Banjo. Tuning for this instrument was similar to the 5-string (but I'll map that out down below). The Plectrum Banjo gained great popularity among American Jazz players and Vaudeville entertainers in the early 20th Century, but nearly died out until it experienced a revival in the 1960's and 70's.

Some pics from West Africa


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Sana Ndiaye performs "Children" on the Akonting

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Banjo's African roots docu

“Throw Down Your Heart” follows American banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck on his journey to Africa to explore the little known African roots of the banjo and record an album. It’s a boundary-breaking musical adventure that celebrates the beauty and complexity of Africa – an Africa that is very different from what is often seen in the media today.

As Ugandan folk musician Haruna Walusimbi states in the film: “There is this negative thinking about Africa. There is nothing good in Africa. They are beggars, there is HIV/AIDS, they are at war all the time. But that is just a very small bit of what Africa is.” Béla’s trip provides a glimpse into the incredibly rich and diverse musical traditions of Africa.

At first glance, it might seem odd that the banjo is the catalyst for this journey. But in fact, the banjo is originally an African instrument. And Béla Fleck’s passion for the banjo runs deep. In his trailblazing 30-year career, Béla has brought the instrument into jazz, pop, classical, and world music settings, and won eight Grammys along the way (not to mention the 20 nominations, in more distinct categories than anyone else, ever).

Ever since he started playing music, Béla heard stories about where the banjo came from. To many, the banjo is seen as a uniquely American instrument – and even conjures images of white Southern stereotypes. But the banjo is actually a descendant of an African instrument. West Africans have long played an instrument that looks and sounds much like the banjo. When slave traders captured West Africans, many of the slaves brought that instrument, and the knowledge of how to make it, to the United States. On plantations in the American South, slaves were not allowed to play drums, but they were allowed to play the banjo. Soon, whites started copying it, and the banjo evolved into the instrument we know today – and became a part of American culture. Béla wanted to go to Africa to trace the roots of the banjo, the instrument that defines who he is.

But Béla’s journey was also motivated by a deep love of African music. Béla was inspired by music from all across the continent, and very often he could hear a place for his banjo. When Béla had a year off from his band, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, he realized it was the perfect opportunity to follow his dream – travel to Africa to collaborate with African musicians.

“Throw Down Your Heart” is a feature documentary that follows Béla’s musical adventures through four African countries: Uganda, Tanzania, The Gambia, and Mali. Along the way, he works with a wide array of musicians – from local villagers who play a twelve-foot xylophone, to a family that makes and plays the akonting (thought by many to be the original banjo), to international superstars such as the Malian diva Oumou Sangare.

As Béla travels across Africa, he forges both musical and personal connections. Using his banjo, he transcends barriers of language and culture, finding common ground with musicians from very different backgrounds and creating some of the most meaningful music of his career.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Unless you know your music history, the avg person has no idea how this music whith a white image connects to West Africa





Old Time Music

Old Time Music is the precurssor to Bluegrass music and it's basically Anglo-Celtic derived fiddling meets African syncopation/banjo and banjo frailing styles (known as "Clawhammer")

Some info..

Old-time music is traditional music that developed in rural and often isolated areas of the Appalachian mountains and other regions before radio, cars, and other modern inventions. The two main strains of the music come from the banjo, brought with many of its common playing styles from Africa by Africans, and the fiddle, which came from western Europe, particularly Germany, Scotland and Ireland. The fiddle and banjo were played separately and together, particularly for square dancing, in the nineteenth century. Songs and ballads, many imported from the British Isles and many written on these shores, are also an important part of old-time music. [If there's an electric guitar or drums, it's probably not old-time music, though you can probably find a few exceptions.]

When people began to play banjos and fiddles together, fiddle playing changed. (See the notes, for example, to the Emmett Lundy LP.) After reading Conway's African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia (see book list below), I would lean toward another theory. Conway gives persuasive evidence that black banjo players taught both minstrels and white mountain musicians to play the banjo directly. Just one of her arguments is that there are lots of common tunings between earlier black banjoists and mountain banjoists that weren't used by minstrels.

The coming together of the banjo and the fiddle in ensemble is not well-documented, but Conway does not find evidence for it happening prior to the minstrels. In the mountains, it dated roughly from the civil war period until roughly World War I, when the guitar arrived. It is likely that slaves played fiddle and banjo together first. There is an 18th century reference inSinful Tunes and Spirituals to two slaves playing fiddle and banjo in 1774, p. 115.

An Historical and Musical Background on the Southern Appalachian Region

From Mike Seeger

During the first two centuries that African slaves and their descendents were in America, Anglo Americans took little notice of African-American music, thinking it too "primitive." This music ranged all the way from sounds transported directly from their homeland to the composed European music some slaves played for their masters. During this period, African-Americans created new genres of song and melody as they mixed the music of their native homes with the harmonic and rhythmic structures they found in the new country. In the early and mid-1800's a few Anglo Americans began taking notice of African-American banjo music and songs, adapting them to their own use. Some were professional entertainers who learned to pick the banjo and composed songs based on what they heard African-Americans doing, often for blackface minstrel shows which portrayed African/Americans in derogatory stereotypes. It was during this period that the mixing of peoples in the armies of the civil war, the development of the minstrel show, and to some extent, the popularity of black religious music, accelerated the process of African - English musical interaction, a process which continues today. It must be emphasized that until very recently this process consisted largely of white exploitation of black creativity.

With emancipation in the 1860's, more African-American people moved into the mountain areas, which tended to be less racially polarized. In addition to bringing their native banjo to the region, by the late 1800's African-Americans had also introduced newly evolved guitar styles along with a new type of song, the intensely personal blues. In time the banjo and the guitar were blended with the old fiddle and song traditions to create the beginnings of a truly American string band tradition. Around the turn of the century some European instruments such as the french harp (harmonica), mandolin, and the recently invented autoharp made their appearance by way of mail order catalogues, travelling salesmen, and the increasing contact with national urban culture.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

cont..

Some of the musical qualities..

Blacks, whites and Southern old-time music

When Sparky and Rhonda Rucker played a Prairie Grapevine concert recently at Springfield's Unitarian Universalist church, they combined southern Appalachian and African American musical traditions. But they were following in a tradition that's literally as old as the hills. Well, at least the people from outside who came to the hills, black and white alike, and displaced the Cherokee people who had been living there originally. We think of Appalachian culture as being Scots-Irish, the source of modern "redneck" America, but it's more complex than that.

"Unfortunately, when people think of Southern Appalachian music, they often neglect to recognize that there have been plenty of African Americans in Southern Appalachia since the 1600s, and that these eople have made their own contribution to what we think of as Southern Appalachian culture today," Rhonda Rucker wrote in the liner notes to their 2007 CD The Mountains Above and the Valleys Below. "Without these 'Affricalachians,' we would be without such gems as 'John Henry,' 'John Hardy,' and all the Brer Rabbit tales. And where would Southern Appalachian music be without the banjo, which of course has its origins in West Africa."

Sacred music, of course, was influenced heavily by the camp meetings of the 1800s, which were attended by blacks and whites alike. is especially But we also find the African American influence in songs like "C.C. Rider" and "Reuben's Train." Sparky and Rhonda say "C.C. Rider" originally stood for "Country Circuit Rider," by the way. I've been hearing "C.C. Rider" since Chuck Willis' version was on the R&B charts in 1957, and I never knew that. Rhonda said the heritage is mixed more often than not.

"There are some instances in which a particular song has a predominantly white or predominantly black origin, but in many cases, the two traditions are often inextricable," she writes. "For example, in researching a song that people often associated with the 'white tradition,' we would find numerous sources that told how African Americans had been singing the song for so long that it was unclear who first sang the song (and vice versa)."

According to Alan Jabbour, old-time southern Appalachian fiddle virtuoso and former director of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress, the influence runs deep. Here's how he explained it in a lecture on "Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier" at Indiana State University in 2001. He said as he collected fiddle tunes from the upper South, especially Virginia and Maryland, he noticed they were different from Scotland, Ireland and the northern U.S.:

Many of them used bowing patterns in which were imbedded elaborate forms of syncopation. Now it should be stipulated that syncopation has many forms. Any performance that establishes one rhythmic pattern, then superimposes a different pattern in contradistinction to the original pattern, is using syncopation. But the syncopated bowing patterns of my fiddling mentors were precisely what we all think of as �American syncopation,� appearing in jazz and popular music and commonly presumed to be an African American contribution to our musical heritage.


I think Jabbour argues convincingly, both at Indiana State and elsewhere, that: (1) the influence is African American; and (2) it runs deep. Very deep. He cites his mentor in old-time fiddling, Henry Reed of West Virginia


He used this syncopated pattern constantly � so much that it can be described as imbedded in his fundamental style. It is not an added feature or an ornament, but a basic feature of his playing. One could say that he couldn�t avoid using it. One can find the same identical pattern in the playing of older fiddlers from Virginia to Texas whose style took shape before the advent of recordings and radio. Such a broad distribution among fiddlers who learned their art before the turn of the century can best be accounted for by supposing that the pattern spread with the settlement of the trans-Alleghany West during the 19th century.

While Jabbour doesn't find the same pattern of syncopation in British and northern American fiddle playing, he does find it in all kinds of African, Arabic and South Asian music. Here's his hypothesis:

Casting our net even wider, we may encounter the same precise syncopated pattern from Africa and the Mediterranean to musical styles as far away as India. But it seems clear that it came into the fiddling of the Upper South through African American influence. If one examines the historical record from the Upper South more closely, it becomes clear that the fiddle in places like Virginia was the favorite instrument of Black as well as White instrumentalists in the later 18th and early 19th century. One comparative study of runaway slave posters by banjo scholar Robert Winans notes that the instrument mentioned far more often than any other instrument in describing the capabilities of runaway slaves was the fiddle. (The Africa-derived banjo and the flute are tied for a distant second.) Fiddle and banjo continued to be central to the African American tradition of the Upper South till the end of the 19th century, when piano and guitar began to replace fiddle and banjo as the most favored instruments.


So we know that Whites and Blacks were all playing the fiddle in the Upper South during the Early Republic period. In fact, they were playing it in roughly equal numbers, and we also know from historical accounts that they were often playing it together or in each other�s presence. It was a revolutionary period, and the evidence seems to me compelling that African-American fiddlers simply added this signature syncopation to the bowing patterns on the fiddle. White fiddlers quickly embraced it, and it quickly moved from being an ethnic innovation to being a regional standard. The pattern could have been present as an abstract pattern in African tradition, and also (though quite recessively) in European tradition.
Once it had become a regional hallmark, shared by Black and White fiddlers, it spread in three ways. First, it spread directly through western migration � to a degree by Blacks but, more importantly, by Whites who had incorporated the syncopated bowing patterns into their own playing and cultural values. Second, it spread into wider popular consciousness through the minstrel stage of the 19th century. And third, African American musicians transferred the same patterns to other instruments, like guitar and piano, thus reintroducing the patterns in all the successive waves of folk-rooted popular music, including ragtime, blues, and jazz in the 20th century. By the mid-20th century it had become a general American pattern of syncopation, and by later part of the 20th century all the world would recognize the pattern as a stylistic hallmark of American music.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

yo,


I appreciate this post actually...



I used to go hard at church ( and i stil do )

but I've been attending ately...... just for the fukk of it,

I gave it some thought, now that I been going to church -- the way they do it, is NOT like the way white churches do it. It's not my style of stuff personally, but it's not cacerish.



However, some of the ideas are directly from Europeans. So it's a wash. Imagine if they practiced in a African way but had proper ideas

There are probably like close to 10 styles alone in the older black church/vocal styles lol.


compare this (dr watts style)



to this (afro, dr watts style)



and both to this (Ring shout..african frenzy)



then this (ring shout related but more polished)



..some more later

 

[Michael9100]

This thread is great....

Since this thread is back to being discussed, I thought I post something rather than music that proves AA's really do have a diverse culture.

List Of Surviving Creole Languages Spoken By African-americans Today

Louisiana creole = French + Native American + African(Bambara, Wolof, Fon)
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=lou

Gullah/Geechee = English + African(Mandinka, Wolof, Bambara, Fula, Mende, Vai, Akan, Ewe, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Kongo, Umbundu, Kimbundu)
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=gul

Afro-Seminole = Similar to Gullah, but less English, and no Mende influence.
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=afs

And one of the many now extinct unique AA languages.

Negro/Jersey Dutch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Dutch

This is thanks to a poster named "Supper" from Nairaland.

a chick (i think) posted some of supper's post on an anthro forum i frequented... h star i think her name was... she posted on nairaland... small world

 

[Bawon Samedi]

This thread is great....






a chick (i think) posted some of supper's post on an anthro forum i frequented... h star i think her name was... she posted on nairaland... small world

Damn... Small world indeed. I remember Hstar from Nairaland.

And thanks.

 

[KOohbt]

Our history is amazing. I really want to make a film about West African history. Group economics is so important so that we can have this type of info in our media and our schools curriculum.

 

[KOohbt]

Found out my African side are Fulani. I really should ask more questions. Got research some more history on that.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Found out my African side are Fulani. I really should ask more questions. Got research some more history on that.

But you said you were part Moroccan? IIRC.

 

[KOohbt]

But you said you were part Moroccan? IIRC.

Fulani's are everywhere in west Africa. My family just happened to be from Morocco.

 

[KOohbt]

Looking up my fams last name and It comes up in almost every west African country. And looking at the people. You can def tell most AA's are of west African decent. So it only makes since that our music wouldn't sound as much like Caribbean and South American music. We been separated so long but still have more in common with them than cacs. Truly amazing.

 

[intruder]

As we know almost all percussion playing music was banned among slaves in North America, largely due to the Stono Rebellion of Angolan slaves in South Carolina, excluding Congo square New Orleans on Sundays(the French and Spanish had a slightly different more lenient system of slavery than did the Anglo-Americans). So, the heavily percussion based Lower West African and Central African styles of music eventually died out in North America for the most part, except among a few key styles and places in North America ie South Carolina Gullahs, Southern Louisiana creoles, Northern Mississippi fife and drum blues(though that isn't Lower West African or Central African derived, but from polyrhythmic Fulani flute and drum music), and African-American southern spirituals.

So with the low amount of African polyrhythm/percussion in North America, one would question HOW IS Black American music African influenced and not just largely Europeanized?


To be continued in next post:

Thanks for educating me on this.

I'm one of those that always felt that most black-american music is a bit too Europeanized. Im sorry but that's the way it sounds to my ears when i hear it
And dont get it twisted, so is Caribbean and Latino music. Dont let them fool you. Some more than others, of course. Reggae, Socca, Zouk, Konpa all have significant dosages of european influence

But for the longuest i always felt the music had way more european influence IN COMPARISON to other black and still do. BUt thats the beuty of it, tho. Black americans have had access to and managed to blend the best of both world in their music thus why some american genres are so popular in europe and africa

This is the first time I'm hearing this myth. Like wtf? Black American music culture is African! Who in the hell would think we got our music culture from white folks?

Not saying you got your culture from whites. Just that IN COMPARISON to that of caribbean blacks and some black latinos, African-American music/culture/customs tend to be have more influence from european cultures. But in the end they all have high dosages of european culture in them because they were all colonized. Thus the scarlett letter we all wear with our English/Spanish/Portuguese/French last names