African to African American
Expressive Culture
the oral tradition
from Africa
 The oral tradition includes
music
stories
oratory
religious expression
 “The African tradition aims at circumlocution rather than direct
statement. The direct statement is considered crude and
unimaginative; the veiling of all content in every-changing
paraphrase is considered the criteria of intelligence and
personality” (Jones in Blues People).
 Literature is an extension of the oral tradition
What did the slaves bring with them?
 Spirituality: integrated into everyday life
Community: emphasis on family and community
relationships, strong kinship networks
The Griot: community historian, councilor and storyteller
 Music: as an integral, necessary part of life
 “the fundamental concept that governs music performance in
African and African-derived cultures is that music-making is a
participatory group activity that serves to unite the people in to
cohesive group for a common purpose” (Jones in Blues People
15).
African musical traditions
 Rhythm and Poly-rhythms
 Societies in West Africa possess music rich in rhythmic vitality
with multiple layers of rhythms. While European classical music
developed complex harmonies of tones, African music
developed complex interweaving of contrasting rhythmic
patterns. African musicians strive for at least two different
rhythms at once, and it’s the juxtaposition of opposing rhythms
that creates the vital spark of African music.
Music: Rhythm
 Rhythm is the most striking feature of African and African
American music: the human pulse, syncopation (shifting
from strong to weak accents), polyrhythms and meters.
African music
 Drum
 Body movement and body as musical instrument
 Group singing
 Call and Response, Improvisation, expression of emotion
 improvise: to make up spontaneously
theme and variation: songs become altered versions of
other songs.
 Call and Response: leader calls out, group responds
Ellison and the Blues
“The Blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the
irrepressibly human over all circumstance whether created by
others or by one’s own human failings. They are the only
consistent art in the United States which constantly remind
us of our limitations while encouraging us to see how far we
can actually go.”
Ralph Ellison and the Blues
 “The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and
episodes of a brutal experience alive in one’s aching
consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it,
not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it
a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism. As a form, blues is an
autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed
lyrically” (Ellison from Shadow and Act).
Ellison & Blues
 “Let us close with one final word about the blues: Their
attraction lies in this, that they at once express both the
agony of life and the possibility of conquering it through
sheer toughness of spirit.”
 Through Blues you can turn pain into art.
Signifying as part of oral tradition
 “Signifying means indirect talk rather than frontal pronouncement;
it emphasizes verbal facility and innuendo (Jones). Signifying is
manipulation of meaning through metaphor, allusions, and
imagery.
 Signifyin’ (g) is an African American vernacular tradition with
these characteristics: indirection, circumlocution, metaphorical,
humorous, ironic, rhythmic fluency and sound, teachy but not
preachy, directed at a person or persons usually present in the
situational context; punning, playing on words, and introduction
of the semantically or logically unexpected (Triumph of the Soul).
African American music
 Themes of Pain and Triumph and
Transcendence,
especially in the Spirituals and the Blues
 “By confronting one’s pain directly, one gains
access to deeper, uncontaminated human
reserves, gaining in the process renewed
strength, renewed hope, and renewed
humanity” (Jones 16).)
African retentions
 Literature and music developed together with the partial goal
of political liberation.
 Music and literature created enormous resilience, integrity
and subversiveness that enabled spiritual and physical
survival.
 Oral expression also created effective resistance to complete
assimilation into the majority culture or annihilation.