Blues Legacies and Black Feminism

I found several things about this reading very interesting. What caught my attention right away was the fact that what Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith were singing about are things that many singers in the same genre sing about today. In the reading there was an extensive list of the things about which many women’s blues songs were written about, including things like advice to other women, alcohol, betrayal, lost love, unfaithfulness, and much more. If you listen to popular R&B music today, many of the same ideas are expressed in the lyrics by both male and female singers. Although the style may be different, the major themes of the content are still concerns of many singers singers today.

                I think these topics were so important then, and now, because they are things that many people can relate to. They make the listeners feel like they are not alone in dealing with these kinds of problems. I know that when I listen to music, that’s one of the main things I am looking for especially in tough times in life. I think these songs really speak the truth about life and things that real people have to deal with. I think, for both the singers and the listeners, these songs give a sense of empowerment at times as well especially in today’s songs that give advice to listeners about love and relationships.

                Like many other things that have come into popular culture that we have looked at in this course, the content of these songs were considered vulgar and inappropriate by many people who listened to them, not only white people but African American listeners as well. As for white listeners, I could not help but think that maybe they thought the songs were inappropriate because it cast a bright light on the social problems of African Americans regarding domestic violence and sexual assault that were not being taken care of by white officials. These songs revealed to the public actual problems that many African American women were dealing with that the upper-class of the United States were trying to keep hidden, and maybe the upper-class white man just did not want to look bad?