Gospel Music

by Tomoko
(Saitama, Japan)

Do you like listening to music? What kind of music do you like....pop, rock, classic, or other?

2 weeks ago, I went to my friend's concert. She is a member of the glee club and that was her last concert. At the concert, they sang gospel music: "Deep River," "Ride the Chariot," and so on. It was so magnificent and fantastic.

Gospel music is also called "negro spirituals," and the origin came from one of the saddest times in America's history: the slave trade. African people who had been taken to America as slaves, were deprived of their culture, language, religion, and lives.

Some of them got to know "gospel," and converted to Christianity. They mixed their rhythm from their home countries, words of the Bible, and hymns from Europe, then brought it to Gospel music.

Gospel music still keeps on developing by combining with rock music and jazz.

I think we cannot change what people have done, but I feel gospel music is a sublimation of their pain, and I see their hope of God, or the future.