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Opprah Music is a reflection of the community from which it came. African American women have been reflecting the social, economic, and political experiences of the African American community through thier music past and present. Each era of change in the African American community has brought about a African American female revoluntionary. Examples of this can be seen through the blues and jazz singers of the Harlem Renaissance, soul singers of the civil rights movement, and the Ryhem and Blues, Hip Hop vocalist of the present day. In the early 1900’s, America was a place of racial division and inequality. The early 1900’s was a time when African American men and women, although by law were free, were not even considered to be human beings in the eyes of European Americans. African Americans in the south were engaged in agricultural occupations. Most African Americans of the south worked under a system called sharecropping, where landowners provided land for workes, whose responsibility it was to raise crops and at harvest time, the workers were to give a share of their profits to the landowner. Under the sharecropping system, African Americans workers were often mistreated by European Americans, which kept them in a state of poverty. The Sourthern states began to pass Jim Crow laws that segregated African Americans from schools, neighborhoods, jobs, and public facillities. Many African Americans sought to escape the racism of the south by moving to more industrialized cities in the North. With the movement of African Americans to the North came the Harlem Renaissance, an African American movement in New York in which African Americans began to more freely express themselves and their ideas through art, literature, and music. However, in the north African Americans had not fully escaped racism. In the north, African Americans often were not able to find good jobs and good pay. African Americans were forced to become domestics or factory workers with little chance for advancement in the north. African Americans in the 1900’s were plagued with racism. Known as the “Empress of the Blues.” Bessie Smith was the female muscial revoluntionary singer of the early twentith century. Smith was touring professinally with a troupe by the age of nineteen and by the time she was twenty-nine sold over 780,000 copies of her first recording “Downhearted Blues.” Smith was a blues singer popular with both black and white audiences. For African Americans though, Smith was more thatn just a popular entertainer. To African Americans, Smith was a strong, independant African American woman with tremendous talent and determination. Despite Smith’s popularity with withe audiences, she was noncompromising. Smith’s singing style was direct, confrontational, truthful, and passionate. An example of the aspects of Smith’s music can be found in her lyrics to “Poor Man’s Blues.” Mister rich man, rich man, open your heart and mind. Mister rich man, rich man open up your heart and mind. Give the poor man a chance, help stop these hard, hard times When you’re living in your mansion, you don’t know what hard time mean. Poor working man’s wife is starving, your wife is living like a queen. Now the war is over, poor man must live the same as you. If it wasn’t for the poor man, mister rich man, what would you do. In the song “Poor Man’s Blues, “ Smith points out that society often claims that the poor are dependent upon the wealthy for financial security. However Smith turns the table revealing that the rich are equally dependent upon the poor for their financial security. The rich are dependent upon the poor to work their low paying factory jobs, clean thier houses, and to chauffer their cars. Smith used her music as a vehicle to express her concerns for a society plagued by racism. Along with Bessie Smith, in the early twenth century was Billie Holiday, a female jazz singer. Holiday’s singing career began in the 1930’s when she started singing in New Yourk night clubs. Holiday sung for over twenty-five years in the United States and Europe. Holiday also sung about the plight of African Americans. One of Holiday’s most well known songs for example is “Strange Fruit”, which describes lynching in the American south. Blood on the leaves and blood at the root Black body swinging in Southern breeze Strange fruit hanging frome the popular trees. Billie Holiday also co-wrote and sung “God Bless the Child”, which speaks poverty in the Rich relatives give crust of bread and such You can help yourself but don’t take too much But God bless the child that got his own Holiday used her music to speak out against the societal issues facing African Americans. The 1960’s sparked a movement for social change in the African American community. In the 1960’s, conditions in the United States were still not good for African Americans. African Americans were still experiencing inferior positons compared to European Americans. African Americans acquired the worst housing, schooling, the lowest paying jobs, and segregation was still a major part of Sourthern life. The conditions of African Americans in the 1960’s sparked the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement was where African Americans participated in bus boycotts, sit-ins, and long marches and other forms of portest in the pursuit of The revoluntionary female singer of the 1960’s was Aretha Franklin. Franklin, known as the queen of soul, was born in Memphis Tenesse in 1942. Franklin was the daughter of a world famous preach; the Reverend C.L. Franklin. In the 1960’s, Franklin became one of the biggest international recording stars in music, selling 250,000 copies of her first record within the first two weeks of its release. Franklin rose to fame singing sungs entitled “Dr. Feelgood”, “Do Right Woman Do Right Man”, “I Never Loved a Man”, “Chain of Fools”, “Baby I Love You”, “ I Say a Little Prayer”, and “The Little House Jack Built”. In the 1960’s, at the peak of the civil rights movement, Franklin and her music was seen as a symbol of the African American community itself, reflecting the increased confidence and pride of African Americans. In 1967, Frankling produced her most famous song “Respect”, which had monumental significance. “Respect” signified what everyone wanted: the average woman and man on the streets, what a man wanted from a woman, what a woman wanted from a man, and what African Americans were demanding from European Americans in the Civil Rights movement. In an interview with David Ritz in 1999, Franklin recalls this peroid of time in her music career; “The civil rights revolution was at its height.....some were sayin that in my voice they heard the sound of confidence and self-assurance; they heard the proud history of a people who had been stuggling for centuries”( Ritz113). In addition to “Respect”, Aretha Franklin’s song “Think” correlated with the civil rights movement. Think about what you’re trying to do to me Think, that your mind gonna let you set me free Aretha Franlin was the female revoluntionary singer of the 1960’s. African Americans today are freer thatn ever before. African Americans have traveled from the southern fieds at the sourth and lowing paying jobs in the north to the moon and beyond. African Americans are CEOOs, college presidents, lawyers, artists, activists, and doctors. African Americans have defied a European society which deemed them inferior. African American’s problems however remain as great as their progress. The drug epidemic is devastating African American communities. African Americans make up 70% of the American prison population when they only make up 13% of the total population. Pay equity remains a serious issue for African Americans whoose median income is less than European Americans according to census figures. Almost half of African American households are headed by single mothers and childredn, which 46.1 percent of struggle under the federal poverty line on less than $16,029. Health issues are major concern for African Americans. Aids is the third leading cause of deaths in the African American community. African Americans die at a higher rate from cancer and stroke. Obesity and high blood pressure affect African Americans disproprtionately. African Americans today, are sitll overcoming many obstacles. Eryka Badu is the African American female revoluntionary singer of the present. Badu’s distinctiveness is in her original style and individuality as a artist. With a unique look, wearing African headwraps and ornate jewelry, Badu sings of self-identity and the ills of society. In her song “Apple Tree”, Badu sings of friendship, self-respect and self-esteem. See I pick my friends like I pick my fruit Ganny told me that when I was only a youth I don’t walk around trying to be what I’m not I don’t waste my time trying to get what you got My soul flies free like a willow tree In another song “Other side of the Game”, Badu addresses the trials brought on by crime and proverty in the African American community. Badu tells of her relationship with a drug dealers and her dilema of wheather to stay with him or not. Badu’s song brings symphathy to this See brotha got this complex occupation And it ain’t that he don’t have education Cause I was right there at his graduation Now I ain’t sayin’ that this life don’t work But it’s me and baby that he hurts Whatcha gonna do when they come for you Work ain’t honest but it pays the bills. Badu recognizes the power of her singing voice and uses it to advance the evolution of her race. Along with Erykah Badu, African American female revoluntionary singer of the present is Lauryn Hill. Hill is the musical voice for today’s generation. A native of South Orange, New Jersey, and the daughter of and Englis teacher and computer technican, Hill made her mark in African American music in 1998 with the debut of her album “The Miseducation of Laurn Hill. Hill describes her album as “really being about the things that you’ve learned outside of school, outside of what society has deemed approprate and mandatory” (Ewey 62). “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” deals with the affairs of love in “Ex-factor” and “Nothing Even Matteres”, self-respect in “Doo-woop that Thang”, and the joys of motherhood in “To Zion”. Lauryn Hill and her music is confrontational, strong, forthright and intelligent. Each era of change in the African American community has brought about a African American female revoluntionary. Bessie Smith and Billy Holiday sung about the African American experience during the Harlem Reinassance wih their blues and jazz. Aretha Franklin’ s soul music reflected the confidence and pride of African Americans during the civil rights movement. Eryka Badu and Lauryn Hill ‘s Rythim and blues and Hip Hop reflects the African American experience of the present. Bessie Smith, Billy Holiday, Aretha Frankiln, Eryka Badu, and Lauryn Hill are five African American female revoluntionaries singers of the past and present. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1892