Cruz "Culture on th margins" and Tupac Amaru Shakur. Adrian

Cruz's text studied the evolution of slave songs into black music. He opened his work with an analysis of how the music was perceived in the South and the North during the Civil War. Fredrick Douglas was one of the first to advocate the analysis of slave songs as "songs of sorrow", basically slave songs were forms of expression (1). By the 1860's abolitionist from the North were transcribing and interpreting the songs transforming slaves from objects to subjects (67). As the Civil War began to gain steam, the intellectual movements in the North intensified their interactions with black culture. Cruz eluded to the fact that the "Negro Spiritual" which was linking music to religion, allowing the music to transcend social classes. In other words, the music was able to reach a larger white population. On the same note religion aided in the transition from slaves being objects to subjects. Although the south was, for the most part, religious it denied slaves basic human rights (69). In the same chapter, he references James Scott's text "Hidden Transcripts" which offered a different perspective to analyzing hidden culture. As I was reading Cruz's work, a song by Tupac Amaru Shakur came to mind, "They don't give a ---- about us", the link is at the bottom.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vZocgmXAUw