The Birth of Blues Music from Islamic Tradition

The term blues originates from the title of the 18th century play Blues Devil which means melancholy and sadness, in this case blues music is rooted in the hum of sadness and African slaves who worked as laborers in the United States. Blues music itself was born and developed for the first time in America at the end of the 19th century and blues music was brought by the Muslim population in West Africa who worked as laborers in the United States.

To the extent that in the days of slavery in the United States, black people were prohibited from using and playing African percussion instruments which were feared to arouse the spirit of resistance, this rule made the early generations of blues music played without instruments. With the passage of time blacks also played guitar as an instrument at the beginning of its birth, blues is equivalent to African-style spiritual music, where the lyrics contain praise and expressions of gratitude to God.

Sylviane Diouf, a writer and scientist and researcher at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, managed to convince the public that Blues has a relationship with the traditions of Muslim communities in West Africa. Then in a presentation opportunity at Harvard University America, he proved the connection between blues music and African Muslim traditions by playing two recorded songs, the first song was a chanting of the call to prayer and the second song contained an old blues song that was born in the Mississippi delta peninsula about a century earlier, entitled Levee Camp Holler and it is necessary to understand that the Mississippi delta is the village where blues music was born, so it is not surprising that the original blues style was delta blues. As a result, Sylviane Diouf shows similarities in the two songs. The tone in Levee Camp Holler's song sounds like the call to prayer and contains glory and praise to Allah.

both have a distinctive nasal style of reciting the Koran. In particular, Prof. Kubik wrote a book on the relationship of blues music to Islamic civilization in West Africa entitled “Africa and the Blues”, which was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 1999. “I'm sure many Blues singers today don't realize that their musical patterns are imitating musical traditions Muslims. Academically Prof. Cubic has proven it. “The vocal style of most Blues singers uses a melisma, wavy intonation. This vocal style is a legacy of people in West Africa who have been in contact with the Islamic world since the 7th and 8th centuries AD," he explained. Melisma uses many tones in one syllable.

Documentation of the history of blues music is very minimal due to the occurrence of racism and discrimination in American society at that time, including in academic circles and the intellectual level of blacks was very low at that time. Documentary writing of blues music only started in Southern Texas and the Deep South in the early 20th century, blues musicians and songwriters were mostly black Americans, one of whom was William Christopher Handy, known as the father of blues. W.C Hendy is a blues musician who has a formal education, he is a composer as well as a music arranger or a music arranger, he also records and plays almost blues music such as playing music in a symphony with bands and singers, then blues develops from informal performances to a formal performance building or theatre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv9qL6PaA-g

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