Black Expressive Culture: Music and Literature - Term Paper Example

? Black expressive culture: Music and literature Among the various areas of African expressive culture, music remains as arguably the most distinctive and significant contribution to the popular sensibility. Moreover, the African American music being an aspect of the black culture is most clearly considered as American because it is the basis for identifying American music. The distinct black American musical receptivity makes its impact on the general musical culture in America readily apparent. Although slavery controlled the capacity of blacks in America to carry out their cultural traditions, various practices and principles endured and with time became incorporated with both European and American cultural elements (Higginbotham, Litwack & Hine, 2001). The result was a vibrant and an ingenious culture that continually has deep effect on the mainstream American culture together with the world culture. Following the emancipation, the unique African American traditions grew and developed into distinctive traditions of music, art and literature among others. The black culture repeatedly developed from the conventional American culture because of the aspiration to follow their traditions as well as the racial isolation in American. Hence, the cultural impact of black culture continues to be a considerable element of the mainstream culture in America although the black culture is a different culture. Slavery allowed slave owners to exercise control over slaves and the physical isolation and societal marginalization of black slaves and their children facilitated retention of elements of the blacks’ traditional culture. The impact of African art extends beyond the proper essentials of African American poems to the way African American culture gets defined and produced. Through black art, practitioners created alternative to the mainstream culture and the contemporary popular culture that remains the domain where black arts influence is openly celebrated. The black culture presence in US mainstream culture continues to pay homage to black art cultural politics in actual allusion and the way in which black cultural aesthetic get articulated and authenticated (Ongiri, 2010). The rise of black arts movement is as a result of three things that include, the civil rights movement, anti imperialist sentiments and the rise of New left (Thompson, 2007). The goal of black arts was to initiate awareness of radically non-western cultural-political setting where blacks could penetrate and feel completed; hence, black art needed to contain non-western components that were capable of being translated into speech of westernized black people. Hence, the essence of the autonomous elements in their work was to speak to blacks at all times and revive the cultural heritage in spite of the westernization (Gruesser, 2007). The work of art has a political function as a propaganda and pedagogy; hence, it is shared and politically committing. The function of black art involves engaging and unifying the black masses for a single purpose like the separation of blacks from American fascism (Thompson, 2007). The various forms of black music ranging from gospel and blues to jazz, soul and hip-hop help define the culture over time and provide a running soundtrack to the American life. Black music like blues and rhythm were the original source for what eventually became “rock ‘n’ roll” a popular genre of music that reached mainstream mass appeal at the expense of its black roots (Boyd, 2008). The everlasting influence of music is evident through phrases like “the Jazz Age”, the place of gospel music as well as the transformation of the American culture through hip hop in the contemporary society (Boyd, 2008). Black music serves an essential nexus that links culture and community; hence, black music is a source of history and its influence has been evident in the American mainstream culture (Boyd, 2008). Because blacks were brought to the US in involuntary conditions, the blacks engaged in venerable struggle in trying to define themselves independent of social, economic and political motives that dominated the US culture. Therefore, the desire to define themselves became significant especially in the field of art and culture because the mainstream society used arts including music, visual culture and television, hence, the need to offer unflattering images of blacks through the same media. To various audiences, the onset of the twenty first century and the reality TV shows offer accurate representation of various ethnic and racial groups within the society. African American theater and drama are ways in which blacks exert cultural resistance to frequent misrepresentation of blacks in the mass culture as well as the political and aesthetic values within the dominant culture (Boyd, 2008). Following the break of musical theater for blacks, the next artistic movement was the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem Renaissance is exceptional since it offered black artists the prospect of working within and beyond the available theatrical structures (Elam & Krasner, 2001). Although there is disagreement on dates, the Harlem Renaissance encompasses the period era between the First World War and the Second World War. Later on, the Black Arts Movement instead of appealing to the whites or relying on them to move forward, the movement engaged in self-determination where black values and morals set the agenda for improving the community. The sociopolitical influence of the representations focused on giving the black community tools that could empower them, instead of persuading whites to improve the predicament of the blacks. This imply community building through arts connected to politics of cultural nationalism, where the blacks understood to be their nation defined not by geographic of the US but by the shared culture (Boyd, 2008). The onset of the 19th century saw the emergence of a leading poet in African American literature by the name Paul Laurence Dunbar and emerged in poetry in 1893 through his self-published volume. The poet later on produced eleven volumes of poetry, which made him gain recognition as one of the fine lyricists in both American and African American letters (Smith, 2011). In African American arts and culture, the term ‘underground’ conveyed submerged creativity that was connected to the politics of resistance encompassing the struggles against cultural marginalization, class oppression and coordinated state violence. Therefore, within this frame of black power politics, the underground also provoke images of space where strategies of resistance were planned. Besides, Hip-hop has changed with time in its existence from the earliest stages, rap music and graffiti were considered to be disruptions associated with youth crisis because of their capacity to transform public spaces, upending mainstream perception of proper decorum as well as undermining rules pertaining regulation and access and use of public spaces (Stemmler, 2013; Klotman & Cutler, 1999). As Hip-hop’s diverse practices converged it became a means of creative expression as well as a zone of social and communal dialogue (Baker, Bennett & Taylor, 2013). Through wide spread underground hip-hop, the music has been able to attain a sub-generic status among music practitioners and audience by addressing content and meaning that differ from those associated with commercial sectors. The context of black cultural politics and expressivity in hip-hop resembles appositional force where artists and creative enterprises offer ways of challenging representational violence by developing new ways of communication often absent in mainstream media (Mahon, 2004). After the 1980s and with black music being commercialized and expanded, artists strived to ensure continuation of hip-hop as a feature of black culture (Patton, 1998). Black art has increasingly made vital contributions to the US culture since its origin in the 18th century within the slave population (Patton, 1998). Roots of American abstract sculpture can be traced to functional, decorative and utilitarian objects crafted in socially challenging circumstances by black slaves (Marter, 2011). Hip hop lineage and its influence on urban culture and its relation with societal power structures specifically the music industry raises concern regarding evolution of the hip-hop industry and black aesthetic arts in it (Rabaka, 2011). Since the era of life within plantation, cultural tools of unification were met with disrespect and attempts were made to obliterate them. For instance, slave owners banned use of African drum as a communication media within the US slave colonies. Initially, hip-hop culture was used as a tool for unification because its birthplace New York City was an environment fostered by a lot of conflict among the residing in it. In the midst of habitual turmoil, hip-hop was created, which facilitated unity all through the poor neighborhood. Hip-hop being a mouthpiece for the many African youth in America; however, the genre initially was dismissed by the conventional media as a short-lived trend. Nevertheless, hip-hop developed sweeping influence, which caused dilemma to the maintainers of status quo and spreaders of corporate and political interest. According to Hamlet (2011), popular culture encompasses everyday culture made up of virtually every aspect of existence and is expressed in various ways including music, dance and literature. For many years, black Americans were mere objects in the popular culture and their depiction tended to be stereotypical and problematic. However, a certain period black Americans tried to harness means of production and develop their representation instead of being depicted by others. Hence, the African American influence to the American culture has been among the most influential and rhetorical the nation has ever witnessed. African American cultural expressions were means of resisting racial oppression through articulation of resistance experiences and struggle as well as articulating oppositional identities in creative ways beginning with oral tradition upon which other forms of culture originate (Hamlet, 2011). The various forms of oral traditional cultures are passed from one generation to the other and the diverse forms reveal the beliefs and values of African Americans and the things they consider to be true and lessons about life. Although at the time of slave trade Africans came from different backgrounds, the vocabularies that could have separated from one another were overcame by the similarity of the basic structures of their languages and cultures (Hill, Block & Buggie, 2000). Since, African slaves were unable to use their indigenous languages to talk among themselves, they developed a distinct form of communication that was to some extend African and to another extend American. The oral traditions remains one of cultural vestiges the Africans brought to America because the oral communication was rich in allusion, metaphor and imagery; moreover, the Africans were prolific in use of body gestures (Sklaroff, 2009). The communication patterns of the slaves came from their creativity and determination to survive; hence, language became not only a way of communication but rather a desire for individual presentation and verbal artistry. From this legacy, the conviction and relevance of the African culture persists and permeates every African American culture. The musical expressions in African Americans have been essential forces for maintaining and nurturing surviving African American language as well as the prevailing cultural traditions. For instance, the hip-hop expressional words and wording as well as the related phrases stem from value placed on verbal artistry and speech in the African culture (Hamlet, 2011). In various processes, black art stakes its claim to English while at the same time reflecting the distinctive values of the African American culture that are generally at odds with European standards. For instance, the word fat is spelled as phat and refers to an individual or thing that is excellent reflecting the traditional view of human weight as a good thing and rejecting the thought which teaches that being skinny valuable compared to being fat (Hamlet, 2011). Moreover, other features of African American oral tradition like testifyin’ and trash talkin’ have found their way to the mainstream American culture. Equally significant, African American musical expression is a form of art for the Africans that allow creativity, thought and imagination to be demonstrated (Hamlet, 2011). Conclusion Through hip-hop, African Americans sought to identify a means of staking claim to the culture because it offered the African Americans a way let out their self-expression and creativity. As well, the various genres of music like rap and hip-hop among others that fundamentally have links to the black culture have permeated the mainstream popular culture in an exceptional manner. Although, the African art was developed in the periphery of the mainstream American culture, some of the art like hip-hop influence not only the mainstream American culture but also other cultures across the globe. The crossover appeal has been phenomenal across the various ethnic groups bearing with it a potential for unifying the diverse populations. References Boyd, T., (2008). African Americans and Popular Culture. Portsmouth: Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated. Elam, H. J., & Krasner, D. (2001). African-American performance and theater history: A critical reader. Oxford [England: Oxford University Press. Gruesser, J. C. (2007). Confluences: Postcolonialism, African American literary studies, and the Black Atlantic. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Hamlet, J. D. (2011). Word! 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