When I was in my mother’s womb my father would put headphones to my mother’s belly; he’d play the hits of: Michael Jackson, The O Jays, Gladys Knight, Marvin Gay, Al Green, Heavy D, Grand Master Flash, Phyllis Hyman, Anita Baker, and soulful voice of Whitney Houston dancing with somebody. I developed a love for music through R and B classics. I grew up in a hollering, stumping, dancing, shouting—Baptist church. I love all music that gives reverence to God but there’s nothing like a good old southern Baptist church hymn. By the time I was eight, I was leading the choir on Sunday (youth and adult choir), and belting the sweet tunes of rhythm and blues Monday thru Saturday.
As I got older, I couldn’t keep my head from bopping to the contagious beat and “flow” of TuPac Shakur and other great “MCs”…As ironic as it sounds, Shakur’s music made me realize that music is more than a melody with fancy harmony, music is more than pleasant (or unpleasant) noise, music has the potential to communicate to the masses what mere words can’t.
As a teenager I was a member of several ensembles. I was in a gospel quartet, trio, and duo, and because of my Gullah heritage I was asked to enhance my knowledge of the culture and embrace my West African roots by dancing traditional African Dance accompanied by African percussionist and song. I later became comfortable with performing songs of the Gullah heritage and was the soloist for the piccolo Spoleto festival of 2008 (before the premiere of the Amistad opera during the actual festival).
During my tenure at South Carolina State University I was a member of the Jazz Ensemble, it broadened my knowledge and made the connection between: traditional African music, gospel, Jazz, the Blues, R&B, Rock and Hip-Hop more evident. Today NeoSoul has made an appearance, now distinguished as one of the soul genres with lasting power. Despite my very urban background I Love ALL music, and if there’s music somewhere that I don’t love I still appreciate it, As long as it “means” something , but then again, I also appreciate the soft hearted superficial stuff.
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Good blog, Sabrina, and not overly rambly as you had feared (though you might explore the world of paragraph breaks...).
ReplyDeleteSo you have some really interesting stuff here. I think it will be really interesting when we get to West Africa in our term to see if anything sounds familiar to you. And the thing about being able to solo a Piccolo Spoleto is really cool! One of our Grads in the class might be doing her presentation on Gullah music--I'll have to be sure and introduce the two of you (you might need to remind me, of course...).