Reading Response 11/10

Blues people by Amiri Baraka is about negro music in white America. The author looks at the many influences of the blues, styles of music and how it evolved. The central argument he makes is that all American popular music is stolen from blacks by the whites. For the most part, I found Baraka's insights and observations about how black music in America very interesting especially when discussing how legacy of slavery affected the evolution of music. Most importantly, African American music represents certain African survival. He provides a view that American culture is created by Africans and White Europeans that feed off each other. Blues, a genre of music is brought because of Africans and Europeans integration of cultures. Today, many Black singers are singers of Blue and Hip Hop. Perhaps Baraka's arguments are views of how cultural products reflects social development. African Americans had their own musical instrument such as the Banjo and xylophone and these influenced instruments used today by African Americans and Europeans. Although they had to endure the harshness of slavery, the joy of living a peaceful life forever in eternity meant a lot more for them. As a result of accepting Christianity, slave masters were also happy that their slaves were now bound to live by a high moral code of living. A lot of the early Christian Negro church services greatly emphasized music. However, some  slave masters forbid slaves from speaking anything related to religion. As a result, there was a language transition and slaves started to develop their own slang. They even spelt some words differently and an example "iggle " for eagle is evidence for their misspelling of certain words. Baraka also touches on social history of how black music came into place. Even though slavery harmed Black's artistic cultures, their music still remained. The church became the center and life for slaves and the free people. Baraka explains how Black music was accepted by Whites despite its origin. Also, the guitar had the most effect on singers along with learning how to play it. According to the author, "another change Blues, a vocal music was made to conform to an instrument range"(69). Guitar became very popular  and it developed the desire for people to sing. As a result, Blues became more influential in America and it may not have risen if Black slavery did not exist.