Black Folk Culture 151rejected negative beliefs (such as feelings of depravity and
unworthiness).
By the 1890s, these early forms of African American
musical expression were infl uencing the development of a
new folk music: the blues. Emerging as a highly localized
music in the rural areas and small towns of the Deep South,
particularly on large plantations and at industrial sites, the
blues eventually revolutionized American music. Blues lyr-
ics, which evoked the African American experience of so-
cial alienation in an era of restrictive Jim Crow laws, set a
new standard for lyrical creativity and directness, and the
music of the blues introduced new possibilities for impro-
visation and individual expression.
A melding of African American and white musical
forms, jazz fi rst emerged as a distinctive musical form in
the late 19th century. Musicians in New Orleans—such as
legendary cornet player Buddy Bolden—created jazz out of
an amalgam of African American, Creole, Caribbean, and
Cajun secular folk music; African American and Anglo-
American sacred music; brass marching band music; and
popular parlor music. Th e word “jazz,” which in the African
American vernacular originally referred to sexual inter-
course, refl ected the sensuality of this new style of music.
Other 20th-century musical styles fi rst emerged in
African American environments, later fi nding wide recep-
tion among mainstream audiences. Unlike 19th-century
spirituals, which were a folk phenomenon, modern Afri-
can American gospel music was commercial from the be-
ginning, in that popular gospel music songwriters—who
united religious texts with secular musical forms borrowed
from blues and ragtime—earned considerable royalties by
formally publishing their work.
Solo and group gospel singing infl uenced two later
African American musical developments: (1) rhythm and
blues and (2) soul. Although many performers of these
related musical styles rejected the didactic spiritual mes-
sages of gospel music in order to obtain crossover popu-
larity, instead singing secular songs about love’s travails
and about social issues, rhythm and blues and soul perfor-
mances nonetheless retained many of the musical qualities
of gospel music, including the individuality and sincer-
ity of the singer’s persona, vocal emotionalism, and vocal
interaction between the lead singer and the background
singers (oft en termed “call-and-response”). Pioneer Afri-
can American rock ’n’ roll musicians likewise felt the over-
powering presence of gospel music.dexterity. In these games, players leveled “sounds” (direct
insults) or “signifying: (indirect insults) against an oppo-
nent, who could then respond in kind. Woofi ng, Signifying,
and Sounding were various names for a game in which a
player humorously teased his opponent. “Th e Dozens” re-
ferred to a game in which a player creatively poked fun at
his opponent’s mother. Th e loser of these strictly structured
verbal contests was the person who allowed his verbal re-
sponses to stray from the ritualized impersonal insult ex-
pected of all players into mere personal insult.
Another type of folk tale, the toast, was a dramatic
traditional narrative performed in rhymed couplets. Most
frequently found in urban neighborhoods and prisons, the
toast was commonly multi-episodic, chronicling the deeds
of such antiheroic fi gures as badmen, pimps, and street
people. Some well-known toasts included “Th e Signifying
Monkey,” “Stackolee,” and “Th e Freaks Ball.” By mastering
the toast, one of the most complex forms within African
American oral tradition, the teller gained power and pres-
tige within black communities.
Jive is another form of traditional African Ameri-
can verbal communication. Historically, when they jived,
blacks were engaging in playful conversations utilizing
strongly African American vernacular speech. An exclusive
mode of communication, jive was generally indecipher-
able to whites. Blacks introduced into the English language
numerous words, some with clear African origins (such as
boogie, gumbo, cooter, okra, and goober). Also from African
sources are two familiar expressions, the affi rmative phrase
“uh-huh” and the negative phrase “unh-uh.”
In folk tales and traditional story-songs (narrative Af-
rican American songs are oft en referred to as “blues bal-
lads”), blacks boasted about a host of heroes and antiheroes,
both real and mythical. African American folk tales and
story-songs depict mythical fi gures (such as the Devil and
Moses), human heroes (such as John Henry, Jack Johnson,
and Joe Louis), and “badmen” (such as John Hardy, Stag-
gerlee, and Railroad Bill).
In the pre-emancipation South, slaves played tradi-
tional instrumental music at dances and sang fi eld hol-
lers, work songs, and spirituals (because of their power
to uplift , the latter were sung during worship services and
also during work). In spirituals, affi rmation outweighed
sorrow; confi dence outweighed despair. Th rough sing-
ing spirituals, slaves reinforced positive beliefs (such as
transcendence, ultimate justice, and personal worth) and