Let's define SOUL

[010101]

a conceptual quality.........ask a billion different individuals get a billion different answers*

 

[Wear My Dawg's Hat]

i've heard this before but i don't think that's true. chris brown dancing to no flockin on youtube is hella soulful just like listening to best part by h.e.r. and daniel caeser. i think zion williamson & saquon barkley have a soulful way to how they play their respective sports. the way kodak black raps on the second verse of pimpin ain't eazy is soulful too, same for that 12 year old kid lay lay who raps in the car with her dad


i'll readily admit that we have quite a few swagless non soulful black folks in the mainstream now. issa rae & donald glover come to mind right away lol... but i don't think we'll ever lose that essence as a people, that's why them ofays hate us so much, in large part it's contingent on resentment and jealousy

I think you're mixing-up soul with style.

Soul goes much farther and internal than style. Style is on the surface. Soul is deeper and within.

Sure, there are entertainers and athletes who are still stylish. But if you watch a 1970s episode of Soul Train, it wasn't just about who was on the stage or the playing field. The dancers/audience on Soul Train were just as soulful as the performers on-stage. Soulfulness was a spiritual feeling that was exchanged throughout the culture.

Chris Brown is a talented performer, and I seen him live numerous times. However, It is difficult to convey soul when you are lip-syncing and relying on autotunes for a good part of your delivery. But, he is of a period when the joy/pain sharing of emotional vocal performing isn't as culturally valued as it once was.

 

[DPresidential]

I never thought in a million years, I'd be able to post this clip in response to a thread but, OP, THANK YOU. DAP + REP.

My favorite artist of all time will define it for you without saying much...

 

[old boy]

I think you're mixing-up soul with style.

Soul goes much farther and internal than style. Style is on the surface. Soul is deeper and within.

Sure, there are entertainers and athletes who are still stylish. But if you watch a 1970s episode of Soul Train, it wasn't just about who was on the stage or the playing field. The dancers/audience on Soul Train were just as soulful as the performers on-stage. Soulfulness was a spiritual feeling that was exchanged throughout the culture.

Chris Brown is a talented performer, and I seen him live numerous times. However, It is difficult to convey soul when you are lip-syncing and relying on autotunes for a good part of your delivery. But, he is of a period when the joy/pain sharing of emotional vocal performing isn't as culturally valued as it once was.

you bring up very valid points here which has me thinking about this in a different way... i'll respond later, good ass post though my G

 

[invalid]

Aight, I think I'm ready to share. I came to the notion a while back that "soul" is the africanisms that survived the middle passage and enslavement. That's what makes it so hard to define-- we're not able to source it most of the time. Googling around, a found this article SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research there's a login wall, but you can register and read it for free with a google account. A few excerpts:

LeRoi Jones considered another aspect of African American musice when he wrote that "The call-and-response form of Africa (lead and chorus) has never left us, as a mode of musical expression. It has come down both as vocal and instrumental form. Herskovitz continues this train of thought with the observation that "The pattern whereby the statement of theme by a leader is repeated by a chorus, or a short choral phrase is balanced as a refrain against a longer melodic line sung by the soloist, is fundamental and has been commented on by all who have heard Negroes sing in Africa or elsewhere." . . . . Every being born in the world has a soul, but not everyone has soul. Soul in this context is the socioethnic phenomenon peculiar to African Americans as manifested in the retention of African elements in African American culture in the United States.
​

Cool, but it doesn't really mean anything without a tangible example right??? Here's where it gets dope

Maude Cuney-Hare, in here early work "Negro Musicians and Their Music" cites the experience of a Bishop Fisher of Calcutta who traveled to Central Africa:

... in Rhodesia he had heard natives sing a melody so closely resembling "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" that he felt that he had found it in its original form: moreover, the region near the great Victoria Falls has a custom from which the song arose. When one of the chiefs in the olden days was about to die, he was placed in a great canoe together with trappings that marked his rank, and food for his journey. The canoe was set afloat in midstream headed toward the great Falls that rises from them. Meanwhile the tribe on the shore would sing its chant of farewell. The legend is that on one occasion the king was seen to rise in his canoe at the very brink of the Falls and enter a chariot that, descending from the mist, bore him aloft. This incident gave rise to the words of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and the song, brought to America by African slaves long ago, became anglicized and modified by their Christian faith.
​

Quick youtube search and I find this

The video description says: "We were greeted by a chorus of 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot" prior to embarking on a Sundowner Cruise. Filmed at the Zambezi River, Zimbabwe"


And where is Victoria Falls located??? On the Zambezi river



That's soul

This was a good try but it doesn’t all the way encapsulate the idea of “soul”.

I’ve heard a lot of African songs that, quite frankly, were more soul-stirring than anything I’ve heard here among black people in the States, but those songs did not have “soul”. And the example that you gave did not have soul either.

For me, soul is a confluence of three elements.

Element 1:

Soul is defined as “emotional or intellectual energy or intensity.”

So, to me, soul is, at its root, an emotive or energetic element.


Element 2:

Outside of the musical influence of Africans in North America, I have not heard the element of soul, the way that we know it, being present in any other musical expressions including the music of Africa.

Which lends the belief that soul is a uniquely African American emotive energy.

This emotive energy comes from the bowels of sorrow, trauma, misery, and despair that was experienced in the midst of the transatlantic slave trade on American soil. Which explains to me why no other group had given birth to it, including our African brethren.

Element 3:

The Africaness that you reference is an element but not in the way that you think. I want to expand on the idea of “soul-stirring but not soulful”.

Because Africa is the bosom of the Earth and the mother of all nations, there is a quality in African music that just represents the soul of humanity. There is something about it that lays bare the soul of humankind that is, quite frankly, not replicated anywhere else.

If an alien race wanted to hear one song that encapsulates the human experience on Earth, that song would be a Southern African song.


—————

So I would define soul as the emotive energy that sprang forth from the trauma, sadness, and despair, experienced in the transatlantic slave trade, which, transformed what was an already inherent soul-stirring musical nature genetic to our Africaness, to the soulful sound we hear from African Americans today.

 

[Rhapture]

Its a racist stereotype based on the idea that black people are "magical"

Black people do have a distinct approach to the arts for the most part. I get what you are saying about how it can be viewed as a stereotype whether positive or negative tho.

 

[Wear My Dawg's Hat]

you bring up very valid points here which has me thinking about this in a different way... i'll respond later, good ass post though my G

Great. I'm looking forward to your next thoughts on the subject.

 

[African Peasant]

You can't define it.

 

[8WON6]

This was a good try but it doesn’t all the way encapsulate the idea of “soul”.

I’ve heard a lot of African songs that, quite frankly, were more soul-stirring than anything I’ve heard here among black people in the States, but those songs did not have “soul”. And the example that you gave did not have soul either.

For me, soul is a confluence of three elements.

Element 1:

Soul is defined as “emotional or intellectual energy or intensity.”

So, to me, soul is, at its root, an emotive or energetic element.


Element 2:

Outside of the musical influence of Africans in North America, I have not heard the element of soul, the way that we know it, being present in any other musical expressions including the music of Africa.

Which lends the belief that soul is a uniquely African American emotive energy.

This emotive energy comes from the bowels of sorrow, trauma, misery, and despair that was experienced in the midst of the transatlantic slave trade on American soil. Which explains to me why no other group had given birth to it, including our African brethren.

Element 3:

The Africaness that you reference is an element but not in the way that you think. I want to expand on the idea of “soul-stirring but not soulful”.

Because Africa is the bosom of the Earth and the mother of all nations, there is a quality in African music that just represents the soul of humanity. There is something about it that lays bare the soul of humankind that is, quite frankly, not replicated anywhere else.

If an alien race wanted to hear one song that encapsulates the human experience on Earth, that song would be a Southern African song.


—————

So I would define soul as the emotive energy that sprang forth from the trauma, sadness, and despair, experienced in the transatlantic slave trade, which, transformed what was an already inherent soul-stirring musical nature genetic to our Africaness, to the soulful sound we hear from African Americans today.

I agree with this overall, but i would add in the element of survival of chattel slavery and still maintaining that self powered confidence that black folks have. Not just the sorrow and despair.

 

[you're NOT "n!ggas"]

This was a good try but it doesn’t all the way encapsulate the idea of “soul”.

I’ve heard a lot of African songs that, quite frankly, were more soul-stirring than anything I’ve heard here among black people in the States, but those songs did not have “soul”. And the example that you gave did not have soul either.

For me, soul is a confluence of three elements.

Element 1:

Soul is defined as “emotional or intellectual energy or intensity.”

So, to me, soul is, at its root, an emotive or energetic element.


Element 2:

Outside of the musical influence of Africans in North America, I have not heard the element of soul, the way that we know it, being present in any other musical expressions including the music of Africa.

Which lends the belief that soul is a uniquely African American emotive energy.

This emotive energy comes from the bowels of sorrow, trauma, misery, and despair that was experienced in the midst of the transatlantic slave trade on American soil. Which explains to me why no other group had given birth to it, including our African brethren.

Element 3:

The Africaness that you reference is an element but not in the way that you think. I want to expand on the idea of “soul-stirring but not soulful”.

Because Africa is the bosom of the Earth and the mother of all nations, there is a quality in African music that just represents the soul of humanity. There is something about it that lays bare the soul of humankind that is, quite frankly, not replicated anywhere else.

If an alien race wanted to hear one song that encapsulates the human experience on Earth, that song would be a Southern African song.


—————

So I would define soul as the emotive energy that sprang forth from the trauma, sadness, and despair, experienced in the transatlantic slave trade, which, transformed what was an already inherent soul-stirring musical nature genetic to our Africaness, to the soulful sound we hear from African Americans today.

Nice try??? You just got a connection from what's arguably the most well known negro spirtual/african american song in our history here.


I'm not saying that Africanisms are ALL that make up what means to have soul, but it is the very essence. It's like the well of ancestry from which we stirred this all up. It's not simply an escape from 'sadness and despair', the shyt is cosmic. It's like a metaphysical return to their spirit and who we once (fully) were from descendants in a new world under harsh conditions. We're also drawing influence from multiple ethnic groups which explains why our African brethren don't have it the same way, and how everyone has a soul but not everybody has SOUL.

I'd be interested to hear from some of the Caribbeab posters and whether or not they have their own equivalent that I'm not familiar with
@Get These Nets can't remember who else

 

[invalid]

I agree with this overall, but i would add in the element of survival of chattel slavery and still maintaining that self powered confidence that black folks have. Not just the sorrow and despair.

Yep, that too. Not just the negative energy but the positive as well, the survival, strength, resilience, and most importantly the hope.

I highlighted those characteristics because I believe our music was born first out of those emotions. You can’t get to light without going through the darkness first.

Nice try??? You just got a connection from what's arguably the most well known negro spirtual/african american song in our history here.

It’s impossible that descendants of West Africans at the turn of the century in America were inspired to write a song that had it’s origin among South Africans.

The song originated from a black slave of the Choctaw Nation and adapted for the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

What you posted was a South African rendition of that.

No doubt, there may have been carryover of West African melodies and rhythms but I doubt Swing Low had its origins among Southern Africans. For one, their style and rhythms are very much distinct from other regions.

I'm not saying that Africanisms are ALL that make up what means to have soul

If you take on the task of defining something. You have to define ALL of it otherwise it’s an incomplete definition.

We're also drawing influence from multiple ethnic groups which explains why our African brethren don't have it the same way, and how everyone has a soul but not everybody has SOUL.

This contradicts what you say here...

Aight, I think I'm ready to share. I came to the notion a while back that "soul" is the africanisms that survived the middle passage and enslavement.

Unless you are referring to multiple African ethnic groups? But that is still “africanism”.

 

[you're NOT "n!ggas"]

Yep, that too. Not just the negative energy but the positive as well, the survival, strength, resilience, and most importantly the hope.

I highlighted those characteristics because I believe our music was born first out of those emotions. You can’t get to light without going through the darkness first.



It’s impossible that descendants of West Africans at the turn of the century in America were inspired to write a song that had it’s origin among South Africans.

The song originated from a black slave of the Choctaw Nation and adapted for the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

What you posted was a South African rendition of that.

No doubt, there may have been carryover of West African melodies and rhythms but I doubt Swing Low had its origins among Southern Africans. For one, their style and rhythms are very much distinct from other regions.



If you take on the task of defining something. You have to define ALL of it otherwise it’s an incomplete definition.



This contradicts what you say here...



Unless you are referring to multiple African ethnic groups? But that is still “africanism”.

I mean we come from multiple ethnic groups hence Africanisms rather than Igbo-isms or Akan-isms or something of the like. The collection of of them is the foundation of our soul.

 

[Jemmy]

Aight, I think I'm ready to share. I came to the notion a while back that "soul" is the africanisms that survived the middle passage and enslavement. That's what makes it so hard to define-- we're not able to source it most of the time. Googling around, a found this article SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research there's a login wall, but you can register and read it for free with a google account. A few excerpts:

LeRoi Jones considered another aspect of African American musice when he wrote that "The call-and-response form of Africa (lead and chorus) has never left us, as a mode of musical expression. It has come down both as vocal and instrumental form. Herskovitz continues this train of thought with the observation that "The pattern whereby the statement of theme by a leader is repeated by a chorus, or a short choral phrase is balanced as a refrain against a longer melodic line sung by the soloist, is fundamental and has been commented on by all who have heard Negroes sing in Africa or elsewhere." . . . . Every being born in the world has a soul, but not everyone has soul. Soul in this context is the socioethnic phenomenon peculiar to African Americans as manifested in the retention of African elements in African American culture in the United States.
​

Cool, but it doesn't really mean anything without a tangible example right??? Here's where it gets dope

Maude Cuney-Hare, in here early work "Negro Musicians and Their Music" cites the experience of a Bishop Fisher of Calcutta who traveled to Central Africa:

... in Rhodesia he had heard natives sing a melody so closely resembling "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" that he felt that he had found it in its original form: moreover, the region near the great Victoria Falls has a custom from which the song arose. When one of the chiefs in the olden days was about to die, he was placed in a great canoe together with trappings that marked his rank, and food for his journey. The canoe was set afloat in midstream headed toward the great Falls that rises from them. Meanwhile the tribe on the shore would sing its chant of farewell. The legend is that on one occasion the king was seen to rise in his canoe at the very brink of the Falls and enter a chariot that, descending from the mist, bore him aloft. This incident gave rise to the words of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and the song, brought to America by African slaves long ago, became anglicized and modified by their Christian faith.
​

Quick youtube search and I find this

The video description says: "We were greeted by a chorus of 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot" prior to embarking on a Sundowner Cruise. Filmed at the Zambezi River, Zimbabwe"


And where is Victoria Falls located??? On the Zambezi river



That's soul

The origins of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” are Black American. They most likely just sung it to pay homage.

 

[Complexion]

Soul is preverbal.

Think on what that means and you'll be well on the way to the answer because its something you feel - either in yourself or another when its displayed - inside and around your body and not just in your head as a label. Its a different kind of awareness, a deeper state of being, an authentic glimpse of self beyond the envelope of time and space that is aligned with the cosmic rhythm that underpins this entire game.

Some call it a peak experience, others an altered state when in reality its our original way and only in those that life cracked does the light pour in and illuminate this realm with its magnificence because others are simply closed off to its glow.

What is soul? Soul is energy in motion, or emotion as you know and this, like many things in this world, comes in many flavors - from the thin slice on top that fakes the funk and floats on the surface just to show contrasted to the torrential release from a wellspring that blows deep from within that allows your man to vent the rage, pain and sorrow that flows through his veins.

We are the inheritors, the alchemists who turned lead to gold and that my people is soul.

 

[KyokushinKarateMan]

I was lucky to grow up in an era when Blacks still had soul.

I will say this, it is something that I’ve never heard defined in words, but yet we all still knew wha it was...that is what having soul is.

We walked around proudly wearing shirts that said “It’s a Black Thing You Wouldn't Understand”... this was a fad for YEARS(along with wearing the Africa medallions), and no one, not one Black person, dared ask what exactly is “it’s”... they didn’t say “what, exactly, is a Black thing?”. And when a white asked, they got no explanation other than a pat on the back and reassuring “you wouldn’t understand anyway”. When you heard that phrase or walked past somebody wearing the shirt, you already knew. You needed no explanation. You know what “it” is in “it’s a Black thing”, you know what a “Black thing”, entailed. That, is having soul.

When you told another negro he was acting white, he still had enough soul in him to NOT turn around and fire back “well what exactly is acting BLACK supposed to mean??”. No. We knew what it was to act Black, and it didn’t need to be defined in words. And we were proud of it. And we embraced that fact that we were so mysterious to whites, because of it. That, is having soul.

Having soul is not something I can remember having ever been defined verbally, as a matter of fact that would probably do more harm to the thought of having soul, than good. We all just knew. Everybody pretty much was on code, and it was normal. A normal damn thing. It was just, us. Hard to explain. It wasn’t something we thought we’d have to document and mummify and preserve for 30years until 2019 to remind ourselves. Black folks just had soul.

Black children knew all the Black dances(electric slide etc). Black kids these days know nothing. Black children knew all the Black movies no matter how old the movie is. These days there are BLACK HUMAN BEINGS walking around who’ve never seen New Jack City or Beat Street or Breaking. Having soul, was having Black movies on rotation like they just came out last night no matter how old they are. And you grew up watching them and being filled with old soulful music.

I have to stop because I could ramble on and on. I cannot explain what it means to have soul. And that’s the most beautiful thing about it.

And no, most of you #NewBlacks do NOT have any. You’re watered down and microwaved out, and it’s not your fault...but it is what it is.