I found in James H. Cone’ s book “The Spirituals and the Blues” an echo of part of my own heritage expressed in words that helped me identify the African--American part of me as what I’ve always called my existential view of life. “Truth is experience, and experience is the truth. If it is lived and encountered, then it is real…without any attempt to make philosophical distinctions between divine and human truth.” (pg. 106) Black music is a natural echo of life’s experience. Authenticity is simply a natural extention of this perspective. This I believe continues through all forms of music that can be identified as having black roots. KRS ONE accuses Nelly of being a “wack” rapper and a “house nigger” (ie. Not really black). And that he is voicing popular themes in a style that is detatched or disconected from the lived experience of black life and turning to the industries formula of Sex, Drugs, and Self- Promotion. NAS talks about many of the same themes but in a way that remembers his roots. What was said of Mahalia Jackson’s music is that, “Honesty of Emotion is Mahalia’s first concern; communication of emotion is second,” … this could be said in general about African—American music. This is a practical existentialism or “authenticity”. Cone argues that this authenticity is true for both Spirituals and the Blues. I say this is obvious from the inside because it comes from the same kind of “Black” soul.

I would add that Gospel is caught up with the experience of God revealing God’s self. The Blues caught up in the experience of the soul, (in the post slavery experience of having some measure of space for self-reflection). I think that the split between these two is a result of the influence of European culture. African culture is as I know it much more holistic.

I think that Cone underestimates the power experienced in spirituals as an actual in-breaking of the kingdom of God not yet realized. Gospel has its roots in the spirituals in this sense. On the back of a Mahalia Jackson Record album I have she is quoted as saying, “I knew the Blues, but there is despair in the blues; I sang God’s music because it gave me hope. I still need the hope and happiness God’s Music Brings. I find it a personal triumph over every handicap, a solution to every problem, a path to peace”. In terms of authenticity I would contend that the blues are at best an authentic assertion of being. Spirituals are at best an assertion of God’s kingdom being shared in as one living soul in the truth of that. For black people this did not necessarily make the songs other worldly. Rather it emboldened some to act against the odds and to escape to freedom. To not surrender the Ideal to the present real is for me the power of worship songs and “Spirituals”. They anticipate the “Future of God” where what is true to God stands. I believe that Gospel Music in this sense stands alongside the psalms and the prophets in their nature and intent. Not as Scripture, but as the human side of expressing theology (communicating about God) as experienced here and now. The music of the soul in this case is part of the communication. What is said through music is more than what can be said with just words -- this is true for all music.