W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in his classic book “The Souls of Black Folk” that the components to authentic Black worship here in America are “relevant preaching, the Holy Spirit and the music.” To have authentic, sho-nuff Black worship you must have all three, and music is key.
Far too many church leaders want to sacrifice paying competent ministers of music who know and can teach four-part harmony, while being comfortable in a variety of genres and who can play from their soul.
Far too many Black churches want to try to have mediocre music because they cannot get their heads around paying the minister of music and musicians fairly, and they do this to their detriment.
Yet the most obvious reason for the necessity of making sure you have good music from your musicians and choir is because, music is the “vehicle to convey experiences that words are too inadequate to express.”
Music is spiritual!
There is profane music that can scar the soul and spirit, and then there is prophetically positive music that touches and transforms the soul.
That which is profane is destructive and unaccountable to the nurturing of humanity. That which is prophetically positive can speak to the pain piercing a heart and express that pain, so that a person knows that someone else understands what they are going through, which they can’t convey in words alone.
Prophetically positive music is also transformational and can inspire one’s imagination to literally perceive the not yet while in your right now.
Music is the “vehicle to convey experiences that words are too inadequate to express.”
My parents would put on some Lou Rawls, “Natural Man,” or Fifth Dimension, “Up, Up and Away” (“My Beautiful Balloon”), or Al Green, “Love and Happiness,” or some Gladys Knight, “On and On,” or some Billy Eckstine, “Jelly, Jelly, Jelly,” or Joe Williams’, “Movin to Chicago Blues,” or some Duke Ellington, “Take the A Train,” when Saturday rolled around and work both in and outside the house had to be done.
Why, because music helped make work a joy, and music created the context for fellowship while working.
“Music is the vehicle to convey experiences that words are too inadequate to express.”
And that is why the hymn book of the Bible, the Psalms, are so essential.
The Psalms are songs in scripture. In fact, the word Psalm means songs.
The Psalms cover just about every expression and experience a person may experience in life, from ecstatic joy to the blues, to anger.
June is Black Music Month, and I would like to examine for a few weeks the power of Black music from the scriptures to see how African people have used music to motivate, minister, and to express feelings that words by themselves could never adequately convey.
That is also why the words of W.E.B. Du Bois are so profound. As with the Psalms of African people in scripture, so it is with African people wherever they are in the world. Music is the lifeblood of life, and music is the tilling of the ground of the soul in worship.
To have authentic Black worship, one must have good music. Music that touches the soul and speaks to what the people are experiencing at that particular moment in history.
When David, the sweet singer of Israel, wrote the hymn we know as Psalm 23, he drew upon his experience as a shepherd to show the all-sustaining presence of his God.
David was masterfully able to connect the dots in the poetic words of this song about how his responsibilities to the sheep as a Shepherd were insight into the comprehensive presence of God that abided with him through every stage of his life.
That Psalm has been able to bring comfort and even courage to so many, but in particular those dealing with the trauma of the death of a loved one, letting them know that, “yea, tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”
That is the power of the music of a people who have had to face unspeakable horrors and matriculate through unbelievable traumas to not only survive but thrive in the very midst of their misery. Music paved the way.
Music is spiritual, and Black music has strengthened the souls of Black folks by putting steel in the backs of a people whose backs have been against the wall ever since we were stolen and brought to these shores by settler colonial white nationalists and forced to not only speak their bastardized form of English, but labor without compensation to build their institutions.
Music helped us in the cane fields, the hush arbors, through the Black Codes, Segregation, lynchings and red lining of our communities by unscrupulous bankers. That is because we found an outlet through music, and we drew creative strength to take lemons and make lemonade through our music.
What song holds you when you face a difficult situation? What song wells up from the soul when you have to deal with sadness? Think about it.
Uhuru Sassa!
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.
