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Big Blog 2

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Ah, it’s the day after Christmas—a time when homes once bustling with festive holiday cheer begin to return to a sense of normalcy. The floor is littered with wrapping paper, discarded boxes, and tinsel. December 26 may be dedicated to tasks like returning unwanted gifts, tidying up the remnants of celebration, catching a football game, or assembling toys Santa forgot to put together in his workshop, unless you find yourself in the Bahamas, where December 26 is not just about the boring post-holiday routine. It’s Junkanoo time! Brief History Junkanoo is a street festival celebration that takes place a few times a year in the Bahamas, on Boxing Day (December 26), New Year’s Day, Independence Day, and some summer holidays. However, the most popular celebrations occur on Boxing Day and New Years Day in Nassau. Today, Junkanoo is marked by elaborate handmade floats groups of people or “rushers” who march and dance through the streets in rich costumes to soul-stirring music (Donaldson, 20...
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Big Blog 1 History of Gospel Music

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  Music and Roots.  Title: "Soulful and Uplifting: The Power of Gospel Music"     I I did my musical roots on Gospel.  When I researched this genre, I noticed this name over and over again. Roots of Gospel: Gospel music's roots can be traced back to the 1930's.  The Library of Congress notes in the page titled " African American Gospel" that " During the 1930s, Gospel music emerged from the coalescing of three types of musical activity: a) the hymn style of Charles Albert Tindley (1851-1933) a Philadelphia minister who composed hymns based on negro spirituals, adding instrumental accompaniments, improvisation and "bluesified" third and seventh intervals; b) the minimalist, solo-sung "rural Gospel" tunes that appeared as a counterpart to the rural blues; and c) the uninhibited, exuberant worship style of the Holiness-Pentecostal branch of the Christian church." (1).  But the true Gospel that we hear today is based upon the Blues ...
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Music and Family

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  I interviewed my mother for this interview.   She did not wish to be recorded  She liked classic rap music most of her life, and is the reason that I like this genre of music. When she was younger she liked The Grateful Dead, a folksy blues like band that was famous for having a cult-like following.  She used to go to a lot of their concerts and told me all about the culture. The band was famous for its fans , most of whom went concert to concert, following the band and having 2-3 day parties, much like the Woodstock concert.  The fans were rumored to be acid taking, drug doing fans, but that was not the case for all.  Some just loved the camaraderie and friendly atmosphere of the shows. . Here is a clip from the Grateful Dead The Best Of The Grateful Dead Live [Full Album] - YouTube She noted that this was the music that she chose, but most were listening to rock and roll back then.  Popular bands were Styx, R.E.O Speedwagon, and Ozzy Osborne G...
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Music and Gender

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 Gender has always been a part of music and the differences between male and female performers' popularity has been noticeable  but in the rap genre, it is a huge difference . There are many more successful male than female rappers.  There are, however, a few very prominent female rappers who stood out among the rest.  One rap artist who has achieved great fame and broke some barriers for women is Nicki Minaj https://www.complex.com/music/a/markelibert/nicki-minaj-shares-video-of-herself-at-25-no-surgery-no-wigs?utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=social_widget_share The Iconic rapper is a success story.  She released songs ad became famous during the time when male rappers were putting out hit after hit.  She broke in with her first solo hit, Your Love, and became the first woman to top the chart as a solo artist.  This is the clean version of the video https://youtu.be/lCSsbzYKLSI?si=RT374jKt43Tgnqe9 .   While some women make it big, the ge...
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 Music and Rituals.   One of the traditions in my mom's family is giant weddings and a lot of people doing fun, line dancing type dances. This past summer, when I went to my cousin's wedding, th4ere was a lot of people from Puerto Rico there and one of the fun songs that was played to bring the American and Spanish genres together was this Cardi B Bad Bunny song.  https://youtu.be/xTlNMmZKwpA?si=W3pSWeL1tuNfrpsv This got the whole crowd dancing and brought both old and young together.  Another exciting ritual or tradition at this wedding was the Chicken Dance, a dance that includes fun methodical music and funny motions to create a dance.   This was the first time I had remembered doing this dance, but they all said I lived it when I was a baby.   Every family or group of friends has music that they enjoy playing when they get together  and these two songs are a couple of songs that are traditions at many weddings that I have been to. Th...
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Music and Me

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 Hello music fans.  My name is Cameron and I am a junior at Converse. I am on the men's tennis team.  I am majoring in business and German Studies.  I am excited for this class because I love to talk about music.I grew up in Mount Pleasant, SC before coming to Converse.  My family is originally from Rhode Island, but I moved away from there at five so I do not remember living there.  My immediate family consists of myself, my mom, my dad, and my older brother. We have a bunch of pets.  This is a picture of me and my brother Mitch.   I have many music genres that I like, but my favorite is rap music.  I would love to share some of that with you.  I know this genre tends to have a lot of explicit language, but I will share the clean versions. I also have been enjoying Spanish music lately, so I am sharing this too. The first song is my go to song, the one I would put on Spotify just because I like it.   Bad Bunny song ....
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