Ma Rainey's Sissy Blues

By 1920, she had established a reputation in the South and along the Eastern Seaboard. In 1920, Smith sold over 100,000 copies of her recording “Crazy Blues” on Okeh Records label recorded by singer Mamie Smith, this recording pointed her to a new market. The recording industry had not directed its product towards blacks at this time, but the success of the record had inspired

The Blues were about taking your sorrows and your problems and adding music and power to it. People would love this music, and would always come back if they can, to hear more.

It is often said that a new definition of a woman arose in the 1920s. But is that true? While most women experienced many newfound freedoms in the 1920s, black women could not explore these freedoms as easily as white women. In the novel Passing by Nella Larsen, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry grew up in Chicago together and are now both two wives and mothers in New York City during the 1920s, but there is a big difference between them. The novel’s title refers to light-skinned black women masquerading as white women for social benefits.

Post-slavery one theme was predominant in the changing period that followed, the freedom Black people gained. The blues especially was a vehicle to explore black artists' thoughts and feelings, as an avenue of freedom. As blues singers, women played into the expectations of being more in tune with their emotions and being able to provide the emotional release that black audiences sought, and creating a rapport knowing that women do and can provide catharsis. Women acted as messengers and preachers to the spiritual release provided by the expressive nature of the blues. In her first chapter of Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Angela Davis points out that the blues was the predominant post-slavery Black musical form replacing the religious

Women’s Blues music in the 1920s and early 1930s served as liberation for the sexual and cultural politics of female sexuality in black women’s dissertation. Hazel V. Carby explores the ideology of the white feminist theory in her deposition, "It Jus Be 's Dat Way Sometime: The Sexual Politics of Women 's Blues", and critiques its views by focusing on the representation of feminism, sexuality, and power in black women’s blues music. She analyzes the sexual and cultural politics of black women who constructed themselves as sexual subjects through songs in blues music and explains how the representation of black female sexuality in black women’s fiction and in women’s blues differ from one another. Carby claims that these black women

The music industry has always been a reflection of the cultural and social situations of a particular audience. Every genre has its unique sound and style that expresses the attitudes and experiences of a particular time and place. Lady Gaga's hit song "Judas" from her 2011 album Born This Way was a significant cultural artifact of its time due to its use of religious imagery, camp aesthetics, and the combination of EDM and recession pop sounds. This paper analyzes how these elements express and reflect the cultural situation of a particular audience, comparing Lady Gaga's use of them to other artists and songs from previous decades, and discussing their extension to the queer community. By examining "Judas" in this way, this paper aims to gain a deeper understanding of how music reflects and shapes cultural trends and

In 1971, Alvin Ailey choreographed Cry, a three part work solo dance set to gospel music that describes an emotional journey filled with struggle, hardships, defeat, survival and joy. It was intended as a birthday present to Alvin’s mother and a dedication to all black women everywhere. The first part of the dance is the struggle of trying to maintain pride irrespective of the opposition faced from outside. The second part reveals the sorrow within after the woman’s pride has been shattered into pieces and finally the third part is a spirited celebration of finding strength and joy in God. Even though cry was dedicated to only black women, i argue the notion that all women both black and white of the nineteenth century could relate

In the novel Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow tells a complex story where historical figures and fictional characters are woven together to make up the narrative. Evident themes include: race, class, and change and transformation. Throughout Ragtime, there are many characters who are influenced by certain people or encounters. Ragtime not only tells the individual struggles of each character throughout the novel but also shows how each character is affected by another. The different characters in Ragtime represent different responses to change - from encouraging change to responding to it, and from resisting change to accepting it.

In the 1920’s women did not have a voice in society they could not express really how they felt as a woman and what they were going though. Artist like Lucille Bogan started to express this term called “new woman” .Her song called “Sloppy Drunk Blues ‘’was expressing her feelings about husband and how she got over it by drinking. In the lyrics she was not using any bad language or calling her husband outside of his name. Years after Lucille Bogan the term “new woman” would be change again by artist like Queen Latifah who wrote a song called U.N.I.T.Y were she used a very bright form of language to get her point across.

The History of the Blues In the music world, the blues is probably one of the saddest forms of music out there. When upset, a blues artist would take their instrument of choice and start to play out their feelings and emotions. The whole point of it was to share what it is like to be ‘feeling blue’ (Blues History).But where did this come from? Who thought of sharing their feelings through music in such a way?

Blues music was an outlet for women like Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith and others to sing about their problems and feelings. The music gave them the chance to let their peers know that they weren’t alone, other women were going through the same ordeals. These songs sent the message that women could and should stand up for themselves and live their lives the way they saw fit. Women of the blues era opened the door for future female singers to express themselves through song about whatever topic they felt. Today’s popular music is somewhat shallow compared to this, fortunately there are some female singers who sing and even write about their lives and the events taking place around them.

The use of both the bottleneck and the bending of strings by the left hand delivers the player with the capability to slide from one group of pitches or chord to another. This sliding or “bending” of pitch is also a hallmark of the blues vocal style. Johnson’s singing style also proves the “holler” that is strongly characteristic of Delta blues and a number of other African-American musical

It signifies the fact that although they were moving into an era where sex has moved from the home to the street and has become more acceptable, this woman were still stuck in her old ways of thinking where people were still used to mechanisms of sexual repression. What the eye sees is regulated by need and prejudice. It points to the notion that getting used to the idea is not as easy as just lifting of laws or giving society more freedom. The kissing couple is almost divorced from the audience because of the fact that they form part of popular art (image reproduced so many

She calls her daughter a “slut” and wants her to see she is not a boy. She tells her, “on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don’t sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys...” (180). She must keep her reputation up. She thinks her daughter already knows too much about sexuality and that she is being disobedient by singing the benna in Sunday school.

Standing Female Nude, written by Carol Ann Duffy, is a poem which describes the condition of a prostitute who is struggling to make a living. Duffy, as with a majority of her other works, attempts to give a voice to voiceless women in the middle and lower economic classes in an effort to promote her feminist agenda. This poem is in fact very layered and explores multiple aspects which may not be spotted on a superficial level, and enables her to transmit her ideas to the readers. Duffy puts across her main ideas of society’s treatment of the prostitute versus the treatment of males, and the prostitutes introspective views. Duffy creates a society, not too distorted from our own in fact, which objectifies the woman and values her purely for her physical assets.