The Griot Of West Africa

Passage A is adapted from a book by a music historian, and passage anthropology journal.

Passage

Many commentators have described the blues musician of the United States as an extension of the griot of West Africa, yet one could hardly find two performers with less in common from a sociological perspective. Griots were the historians of their communities, representatives of time-honored traditions, the preservers of lore and cultural the griotʼs song filled many of the roles that these institutions serve in other societies.

The blues musician, in contrast, honed a music of personal expression, often reflecting a lack of connection to the broader streams of society, evoking feelings of alienation and anomie. Slavery caused this terrible disjunction. Slavery destroyed in large part the traditional social fabric, the communal values, the historical music was, in many ways, a response to this deprivation.

And here we encounter the fundamental tragedy of the blues and one of the sources of its unparalleled symbolic power. For the music sings of small, everyday details of individual lives. But behind this facade always sits a larger reality, invariably unspoken, but no less present for this silence. Separated from the the perennial themes of blues music—heartache and hardships—capture in a personal dimension the larger social truth.

Passage

Fifteenth-century Portuguese explorers observed a stratified social hierarchy in the Wolof culture of Senegal, with a high-status noble sector (géer) and low-status caste groups (ñeeño). Wolof elites of the day the lowest of which was griot.

Griots alone specialized in the spoken word. Raising oneʼs voice in public was considered inappropriate for socially prominent people, but griots, considered unmarriageable outside their caste, shouted and sang their patronsʼ praises to drum, and always with great eloquence.

At community gatherings, griots accompanied their patrons, with whom they had usually inherited a close relationship through generations of service. Reciting vivid histories about the brave deeds of their patronsʼ family ancestors and singing praises about their exemplary work and daily conduct, griots used their music to sway public opinion in favor patrons required griots to be sensitive to Wolof community values and conceptions of correct social conduct.