Amaris Baraka’s Blues People: Negro Music in White America is a story of Negro Americans. He writes about the start of the Blues and Jazz music. In the beginning of the chapter, it says, "blues could not exist if the African captives had not become American captives" (17). Reading this line reminded me of a book called Hip: The History, by John Leland, which also talked about the growth of African American music. One particular part of the book that was interesting was that the author said that America would not be America without Africans. I agree with some because in my opinion, and as depicted by Leland, the white people needed those slaves in order to survive. The same idea is represented by Bakara, stating that without african captives, the blues would not even exist. The blues emerged from a combination of chants and African spirituals, and at the same time, influences Jazz music. This type of music depicted what everyday life was like for the negro american, and indeed their diverse labor was a major influence for those songs. However, in this book however, Bakara talks about the blues as something slightly different. Bakara expresses that the first slaves sang about their burning desire to go home, and these new slaves now sang about wanting back their freedom.
Bakara also speaks about the birth of Negro-English, and how the negro captives used this new form of language to make their music. The book states, "... The Negroes who reached the New World acquired as much of the vocabulary of their masters as they initially needed or was later taught to them, pronounced these words as best they were able, but organized them into aboriginal speech patterns” (22). I think that this was what made it possible for them to sing and not have their masters understand what they were singing about.
America would not be the America that it is without the existence of Negro slaves. A lot of things have been taken from their culture, like Blues and Jazz, and implemented into this culture, thus saying that American culture would not exist without it.
2 comments:
I do agree that this book reminded me of the book Hip: the History by John Leland. Both authors have similar belief as they believe that American culture would not be like today’s America without Africans and other races. I believe that the mixtures of all cultures and races, from all part of the world, helped to create and maintain the richness of American culture. It’s also maintaining the original aura from each culture that contributed to this culture.
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