Expression of Music

This week in class we learned about music and history and how the two of them relate to one another. Over time it’s no secret that music has evolved as humans have. The styles are different, the lyrics are different, and obviously the artist are different. Music changes as the world changes. From my observations, musicians and artist seem to sing about what events are taking place around them. Country artist sing about just that, the country. They sing about living out there, what they do, driving around in their trucks, and of course love. I’m not saying that all country artist are the same, but they all sing about the same things in different words. They sing about what is around them and their experiences in life and just about life in general. Rappers do the same thing, they talk about their lifestyle which is mainly, but not limited to, drugs, women, cars, and love. Again I’m not saying that they are all the same because they all express themselves in different ways, but if you take away the differences they are all the same. In class Thursday we talked about how during slavery and the wars, music impacted people. Music is the one thing that everyone can have in common, rich or poor, white or colored, slave or free, men or women, everyone has music. While slaves worked to pass the time and try to make their days a little more bearable they would sing or hum music. We were told that slaves or others would even send hidden meanings in songs to one another because no one would suspect it. Music unites people, when they don’t know who or what to turn to they turn to each other. Protests happen and instead of having long speeches expressing themselves, they shorten in, make it catchy, and everyone sings it. In my opinion, hearing a bunch of people saying or singing the same thing would stand out to me more than one person talking to everyone else about the problem. Songs are constantly stuck in your head even if you don’t want them to be, meaning if they sang instead of had speeches it might get stuck in the right persons head and resolve the problem. People spoke up threw their music and made a stand for what they believed to be right and did whatever possible to get their points across. Today people still sing or rap about the problems but in a more discreet way, like Childish Gamino’s song This Is America. The lyrics may not seem like much but when you watch the music video that goes along with it, you understand more what he is trying to say. There are still problems today they just aren’t as announced as they used to be in the old days. Now we have cover ups or not the whole truth, Childish Gambino’s song/video to me, seemed like he was trying to send a message to everyone that timees aren’t that different and something needs to be done.