A spiritual is a form of religious music of African Americans during slavery. Spirituals were the earliest form of religious music developed among African Americans. Often mistaken as a combination of European hymns, Spirituals were not hymns. The defining structure of a spiritual was call and response. Call and response is a song structure in which a singer or instrumentalist makes a musical statement that is answered by another soloist, instrumentalist, or the group. Call and response is ubiquitous in the regions of West and Central Africa from which the slave population originated.