Black Mens Studies. Serie McDougal III
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carriers and preservers to foster the collective identity of enslaved Black people. African American men and women created spirituals or religious music during slavery. They emerged from Black styles of worship which included call and response in the form of audience affirmations of the preacher’s messages, and physical expressiveness such as frequent handclapping, body movement, shouting and dance (Burnim & Maultsby, 2006)
Blues music, which originated in the 1890s, was the integration of features from spirituals, work songs, and field hollers with new musical ideas (Maultsby, 2000). Blues involves a great deal of improvisation and call-and-response. The singers, typically male, preferred to perform solo, with an instrument (piano, banjo, guitar, or harmonica) (Evans, 2006). The blues artist is likened to the African griots or djelis, members of a professional caste of entertainers/oral historians (Evans, 2006). Instruments in the blues not only provided supportive sounds but were used as a second voice to respond to the ←14 | 15→vocalist’s lines. The blues were (and often still are) distinguished by their form, the AAB format. The same line is repeated twice, followed by a third line which rhymes with the first two:
A:I’m a howlin’ wolf, and I been howlin’ all round yo door,
A:I’m a howlin’ wolf, and I been howlin’ all round yo door,
B:if you give me what I want little girl, and you won’t hear me howl no more.
The blues articulated the psychology of suffering and resilience (White & Cones, 1999). The same improvisation found in the blues is a hallmark of jazz. Jazz emerged from ragtime bands led by Black men such as Jelly Roll Morton, a pianist and composer crucial to the development of the art form. It is defined by a host of unique features including improvisation, syncopation, a rhythmic propulsiveness known as swing, blues feeling, and harmonic complexity (Monson, 2006). Unlike soul music and other African American art forms, early jazz typically placed emphasis on instrumentation instead of the human voice.
Two Black men are greatly responsible for the creation of gospel music, a form that emerged in the 1930s. Charles Tinley is considered the grandfather of gospel music via his performance and composition style, and his integration of the piano and organ into spirituals (Burnim, 2006). Thomas Dorsey is considered the father of gospel music (Burnim, 2006). His style was strongly influenced by jazz and the blues, incorporating the blues scale in Dorsey’s melodies and harmonies. Gospel was able to transform sorrow and despair into faith and joy in the form of vibrant rhythms, shouts, handclapping, swaying and dancing (White & Cones, 1999).
Rhythm & blues (R&B) borrows elements of the blues, jazz, spirituals, and gospel music. Originally there were four subgenres of rhythm and blues: solo artists, combos (seven or eight instrumentalists such as Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five), trios (the Nat King Cole Trio), and vocal harmony groups (the Delta Rhythm Boys) (Maultsby, 2006). Emerging during the Black Power movement, soul music borrows heavily from gospel music, sometimes only distinguished from gospel due to its lyrical content, focusing on themes of love, romance, and social-political protest and commentary (Maultsby, 2006). Many soul songs were secularized gospel songs and vice versa. Among its pioneers were Black men such as Ray Charles, James Brown, and Sam Cooke.
Emerging during the transition from segregation to integration in the 1970s, funk music was a Black dance music style. James Brown provided the foundation for funk music characterized, in part, by its focus on themes of partying, social commentary, Black nationalism, and romance (Maultsby, 2006). Funk emphasized being one’s own person and having a unique style, reflected in funk artists’ showmanship and flashiness.
The art forms discussed in this section set the foundation for newer musical innovations like techno and house music. These forms shifted emphasis away from the voice to electronic sounds, beats and the movement of the human body, pioneered by Black men including but not limited to Derrick May and Francis “Frankie Knuckles” Nicholls. Hip-hop music draws upon all these forms, from Jamaican and African American toasts and storytelling traditions, playing the dozens, field hollers, funk, techno, and the vocal styling of African American radio personalities.
Black Male Hero Traditions
Heroes are people or figures, real or imagined, who are highly valued within a culture, and thus serve as models for thinking and/or acting (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005). In addition to protest literature, African American manhood is also reflected in African American folk hero tradition. For example, African Americans created trickster tales that were an extension of African trickster tales. Trickster tales include narratives in which “clever animals acted as human” (p. 17). These trickster characters were usually males. They represent a unique window into models of Black manhood and masculinities ←15 | 16→during slavery. Signifying Monkey tales usually included several main characters: a monkey, a lion, and an elephant. In these stories, the monkey clearly cannot defeat the lion in a physical contest, although the elephant can. Therefore, the monkey’s objective is frequently to achieve his goals by using his intellect and verbal skills to manipulate the elephant into a fight with the lion (Gates, 1988). Roberts (1989) explains how African Americans identified with the trickster-hero characters because they occupied a disadvantaged position in their environment. In addition, they had to devise indirect methods of circumventing the master without directly challenging him. In this context, the monkey may appear to be individualistic, but this is because he is interacting with animals who are unlike him in that they are not disadvantaged.
However, individualism and self-centeredness were abhorred in the community of the enslaved. Like the animal tricksters in the tales, the enslaved relied on Whites’ perceptions of their inferiority and underestimating their intelligence. Similarly, African trickster tales primarily involved underdog animals (e.g., Ture, the sacred spider) manipulating, making bonds with and then terminating bonds with bigger, dim-witted animals. However, the objectives in trickster tales during slavery placed great emphasis on physical survival as the ultimate goal. For example, African tales often emphasized trickery with the objective of acquiring food, in a context of famine. African American trickster tales took place in a context where the natural environment was not the root cause of the problem. Indeed, there was material abundance, but Black people were systematically denied access to those resources. While African trickster tales emphasized traditional religious values, African American trickster tales complied with a more situational moral code allowing for otherwise amoral behaviors (stealing, lying, etc.) in the context of an unjust condition (Roberts, 1989). Although they were an extension of the African oral tradition, African American trickster tales represent a unique form of African diasporic cultural creation in a new environmental context.
Enslaved Africans also constructed stories of a human, a Black male trickster named John, and his interactions with the old master. John was a slave-driver. Drivers were expected to enforce the master’s rules and regulate the pace of work among the enslaved (Roberts, 1989). In return, the driver was given privileges in the form of better food, clothes, and living conditions. The unique position of the driver was defined by his need to satisfy the master by controlling the enslaved, which required their cooperation. To maintain the well-being of the enslaved community, the driver had to find ways to get the community better food and clothes, and allow them leisure time. This required him to manipulate and deceive the master using his wit and guile. The crux of John and old master tales was John, due to his primary advantage, successfully deceiving the master to benefit other enslaved people. John succeeds due to the owner’s erroneous view of him as subhuman and inferior (Roberts, 1989).
Another figure treated as a hero in the African American oral tradition was the conjurer. During slavery and beyond, conjurers, root-workers, and hoodooers were all incorporated into folk stories as heroes. Whites viewed conjurers as a threat to their authority and to Christianity (Roberts, 1989). Conjurers possessed many skills. Black people showed deference to the conjurers when Whites expected them to defer to their masters. The conjurer’s skills included curing illnesses through the use of spirituality and knowledge of the medicinal properties of whole plants, herbs, roots, barks, and animal substances (Roberts, 1989).
Many enslaved Africans believed in both Christianity and the power of the conjurer. The objective of the conjurer was to maintain communal harmony and well-being by helping people to heal the physical and spiritual aspects of their illnesses. They used their spiritual and