Islam and the Blues

Abstract

Many enslaved Africans brought to the United States during the transatlantic slave trade were Muslims. Although eventually stripped of their beliefs, customs, and traditions in the New World, their religious faith would play a seminal role in the creation of a new music genre: the blues.This article argues that when comparing the early blues to the musical practices of Islam, the Islamic influences on the blues are strikingly evident.

Keywords:

• african retentions
• blues
• enslaved muslims
• islam
• melismas
• solo singing

Notes

A. Baraka, Blues People. (New York: Morrow Quilt Paperbacks, 1963); H. Courlander, Negro Folk Music U.S.A. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963).

M. Gomez, (1994, November) “Muslims in Early America.” [Electronic version]. The Journal of Southern History, 60(4) 667–710.

A. Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and spiritual struggles (New York: Routledge: 1997), p. 23.

M. Scorsese, Ali Farka Toure: Sound Travels by Christopher John Farley. Amistad (2003), p. 95.

S. Diouf, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (New York: New York University Press, 1998); G. Kubik, Africa and the Blues (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999); J. S. Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972).

Austin, African Muslims.

Ibid., p. 8.

Diouf, Servants of Allah, p. 195.

Charters, S., The Roots of Blues: An African Search (New York: Perigee Books, 1981), pp. 1 and 125.

Ibid., p. 6.

Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds, pp. 12–13.

Diouf, Servants of Allah, p. 197.

Kubik, Africa and the Blues, p. 85.

Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds, p. 212.

Ibid., p. 213.

Kubik, Africa and the Blues, p. 93.

A. Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), p. 232.

Ibid., p. 231.

Ibid., p. 234.

All characteristics from: K. Nelson, (1980). The Art of Reciting the Qur'an (Dissertation Abstract International, 1980), pp. 42 and 341.

Ibid., p. 125.

Kubik, Africa and the Blues.

Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds, p. 12.

Baraka, Blues People, pp. 25 and 31.

Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qur'an, p. 253.

Courlander, Negro Folk Music, p. 18.

Ibid., p. 24.

Baraka, Blues People, p. 31.

Ibid., p. 41.

Courlander, Negro Folk Music, p. 25.

Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qur'an, p. 123.

Ibid., pp. 217–218.

Baraka, Blues People, p. 70.

Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds.

Baraka, Blues People, p. 27.

Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qur'an, p. 246.

Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds.

Baraka, Blues People, p. 62.

Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qur'an, p. 52.

Baraka, Blues People, p. 23.

Courlander, Negro Folk Music, p.26.

Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began, p. 232.

Courlander, Negro Folk Music, p. 88.

Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qur'an, p. 57.

Baraka, Blues People.

Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began, p. 232.

Baraka, Blues People, p. 28.

Diouf, Servants of Allah, p. 198.