What up Folk?- Folk Music

What up Folk- Folk Music

Tatyana Lester

Surv. Of African American Music

SMUS 240-01

28 August 2019

Review on “Folk Music- The Beginning”

            Folk music was the beginning of a new era for black people.  At least that’s a big part of what I took from the article and it was very informative on what folk music was.  It explains how folk music was essentially the start of music for black people.  Also, how it helped the slaves overcome their struggles by expressing themselves through the music.  From this article, I know that without folk music originating an outlet of the start of music for black people, we probably wouldn’t have a lot of impact in the industry of music now.

In the article it states that folk music, “Connotates struggle, human rights, empowerment, and perservance” (paragraph 1). This gave me insight on why it is so imperative that I know about folk music as a black person.  Folk music for black people is the raw version of how African-American slaves felt.  In addition to it being the raw version of music for black people because it was the start, the techniques and methods used to create it included so much more passion for African Americans and makes folk music that much more special.

In order to tell the stories of their lives they used a technique called pattin juba to get their point across. Using instruments such as djembe, washboards and banjos to create their “work songs”, which they would call their folk music songs.  Musicians and dancers would do ring shouts and the call and response method to engage other slaves to enjoy the music with them.  Just reading this and gaining the knowledge to know that they had the strength to overcome their struggles by providing a light to the situations they were in and create music during such a hard time amazes me. Without black people creating folk music, blacks would not be so invested and creating music whose genres are growing more and more for blacks such as hip hop, R&B, pop, etc.

Works Cited

Ford, Jordann. “Folk Music- The Beginning”. May 4, 2019. https://blackmusicscholar.com/folk-music-the-beginning/.

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