Mohamed Adnan

When you think of gospel music, chances are churches and large church choirs doing large
performances were the first things that came to your mind. But would you believe that there was
a time when such performances would hardly be associated with the church? Not too many
people know that  the origin, roots, not only was a new music genre created but it also gave birth
to the present-day African-American culture. Gospel music origin, roots, history goes back to
Africa but most of the sound was developed on American soil, particularly in the southern area,
during the 18th century at the height of the slavery era. When the American slavers brought
Africans to American soil, a ban prohibiting their native music and the use of traditional African
instruments was imposed on them. The enslaved Africans then turned to creating a new kind of
music by using Christian subjects instead and fused their traditional African music styles with
the Western style of harmony and musical instruments, thus began the music origin, roots,
history of modern day gospel music. Gospel music started to spread towards the North American
territories during the late 1800s when slaves were allowed to publicly perform in large musical
ensembles. The new breed of music was embraced by the all-white public. Pretty soon the
influence of gospel music started to spread not only to traditional religious music but also to
popular American music. Some popular gospel songs were Down by the riverside by Sister
Rosetta Tharpe, Amazing Grace and Wade in the water by mary mary.