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Blues People
Blues People: Negro Music in White America is a non-fiction book focusing on the Afro-American music, published in 1963 by Amiri Baraka, who published it under the pen name LeRoi Jones.
In Blues People Baraka explores the history of Black Americans through the evolution of Black music and documents the effects of jazz and blues on American culture, at musical, economic, and social levels. Blues People argues that "negro music"—as Amiri Baraka calls it—appealed to and influenced new America. The book chronicles many genres of music dating from African music carried to America by Black people during the Atlantic slave trade, up to the 1960s. According to Baraka, music and melody is not the only way the gap between American culture and African-American culture was bridged. Music also helped spread values and customs through its media exposure. Blues People demonstrates the influence of African Americans and their culture on American culture and history. The book examines blues music as performance, as cultural expression, even in the face of its commodification. The book chronicles what brought him to believe that blues was a personal history of his people in the United States.
To Baraka, Blues People represented "everything [he] had carried for years, what [he] had to say, and [himself]". Baraka dedicates the book "to my parents ... the first Negroes I ever met".
The 1999 reprint begins with a reminiscence by the author, then aged 65, titled "Blues People: Looking Both Ways", in which he credits the poet and English teacher Sterling Brown with having inspired both him and his contemporary A. B. Spellman. Baraka does not here discuss the impact his book has had.
The original text is divided into twelve chapters, summarized below.
Baraka opens the book by arguing that Africans suffered in America not only because they were slaves, but because American customs were foreign to them. He argues that slavery itself was not unnatural or alien to the African people, as slavery had long before existed in the tribes of West Africa. Some forms of West African slavery even resembled the plantation system in America. He then discusses a brief history of slavery, inside and outside the United States. He argues that unlike the slaves of Babylon, Israel, Assyria, Rome, and Greece, American slaves were not even considered human.
Baraka then further addresses his previous assertion that African slaves suffered in the New World because of the alien environment around them. For example, the language and dialect of colonial English had no resemblance to the African dialects. However, the biggest difference that set the African people aside was the difference in skin color. Even if the African slaves were freed, they would always remain apart and be seen as ex-slaves rather than as freed individuals. Colonial America was an alien land in which the African people could not assimilate because of the difference in culture and because they were seen as less than human.
The horrors of slavery can be broken down into the different ways in which violence was done against African people. In this section Baraka contends that one of the reasons the Negro people had, and continue to have, a sorrowful experience in America is the violently different ideologies held by them and their captors. He transitions from highlighting the economic intentions of Western religion and war to pointing out how the very opposite life views of the West African can be construed as primitive because of the high contrast. He addresses the violence done against the cultural attitudes of Africans brought to this country to be enslaved. He references the rationale used by Western society to justify its position of intellectual supremacy. Western ideologies are often formed around a heightened concept of self; it is based on a belief that the ultimate happiness of mankind is the sole purpose of the universe. These beliefs are in direct opposition to those of the Africans originally brought to this country, for whom the purpose of life was to appease the gods and live out a predetermined fate.
Blues People
Blues People: Negro Music in White America is a non-fiction book focusing on the Afro-American music, published in 1963 by Amiri Baraka, who published it under the pen name LeRoi Jones.
In Blues People Baraka explores the history of Black Americans through the evolution of Black music and documents the effects of jazz and blues on American culture, at musical, economic, and social levels. Blues People argues that "negro music"—as Amiri Baraka calls it—appealed to and influenced new America. The book chronicles many genres of music dating from African music carried to America by Black people during the Atlantic slave trade, up to the 1960s. According to Baraka, music and melody is not the only way the gap between American culture and African-American culture was bridged. Music also helped spread values and customs through its media exposure. Blues People demonstrates the influence of African Americans and their culture on American culture and history. The book examines blues music as performance, as cultural expression, even in the face of its commodification. The book chronicles what brought him to believe that blues was a personal history of his people in the United States.
To Baraka, Blues People represented "everything [he] had carried for years, what [he] had to say, and [himself]". Baraka dedicates the book "to my parents ... the first Negroes I ever met".
The 1999 reprint begins with a reminiscence by the author, then aged 65, titled "Blues People: Looking Both Ways", in which he credits the poet and English teacher Sterling Brown with having inspired both him and his contemporary A. B. Spellman. Baraka does not here discuss the impact his book has had.
The original text is divided into twelve chapters, summarized below.
Baraka opens the book by arguing that Africans suffered in America not only because they were slaves, but because American customs were foreign to them. He argues that slavery itself was not unnatural or alien to the African people, as slavery had long before existed in the tribes of West Africa. Some forms of West African slavery even resembled the plantation system in America. He then discusses a brief history of slavery, inside and outside the United States. He argues that unlike the slaves of Babylon, Israel, Assyria, Rome, and Greece, American slaves were not even considered human.
Baraka then further addresses his previous assertion that African slaves suffered in the New World because of the alien environment around them. For example, the language and dialect of colonial English had no resemblance to the African dialects. However, the biggest difference that set the African people aside was the difference in skin color. Even if the African slaves were freed, they would always remain apart and be seen as ex-slaves rather than as freed individuals. Colonial America was an alien land in which the African people could not assimilate because of the difference in culture and because they were seen as less than human.
The horrors of slavery can be broken down into the different ways in which violence was done against African people. In this section Baraka contends that one of the reasons the Negro people had, and continue to have, a sorrowful experience in America is the violently different ideologies held by them and their captors. He transitions from highlighting the economic intentions of Western religion and war to pointing out how the very opposite life views of the West African can be construed as primitive because of the high contrast. He addresses the violence done against the cultural attitudes of Africans brought to this country to be enslaved. He references the rationale used by Western society to justify its position of intellectual supremacy. Western ideologies are often formed around a heightened concept of self; it is based on a belief that the ultimate happiness of mankind is the sole purpose of the universe. These beliefs are in direct opposition to those of the Africans originally brought to this country, for whom the purpose of life was to appease the gods and live out a predetermined fate.