Music has a way of transcending listeners to new or old places. Whether it’s through the lyrics or the beat of a song, it has a way of evoking nostalgia by unlocking specific memories, or it allows the listener to create new memories while playing it. It is an art form that generates emotion for both the performer and listener.
When I listened to Jazmine Sullivan’s album “Heaux Tales”, I experienced a myriad of emotions. Her songwriting skills allowed me to feel longing while playing “The Other Side’' because of its lullaby nature and aspirational lyrics. I felt sadness during “Lost One” because she expresses guilt for wronging someone she loves. And the song “Bodies” made me want to two-step because of its upbeat tempo and humorous lyrics.
“Put a lock on the door where my heart once was/Boy you had your fun/But I had enough/Now I’m really done/I deserve so much more than you gave to me/So now I’m savin’ me/And I made my peace/So you can run them streets.”
These are the lyrics in the bridge of track three of Sullivan’s album. In the rhythm and blues singer’s track “Pick Up Your Feelings,” she describes a relationship that ended, while simultaneously boasting her strength, confidence and resilience after the breakup. At the beginning of the song, she sings about how her now ex-boyfriend blamed her for acting differently, even though he cheated on her. Toward the end of the song, she doubles downs on her stance of not needing him with lyrics like, “I ain’t got the room for extra baggage,” and “You ran out of chances of forgivin.’’ Consequently, she wants for him to come pick up his feelings, or simply get over her decision to walk away.
The subject matter of Sullivan’s fourth studio album is the nuanced experiences of Black women. She covers love, sexuality, infidelity, insecurities and feelings of longing for a better life. Each song has a prelude or “tale” that gives off a spoken word vibe before Sullivan sings about the same topic. She allows women to share their personal experiences in what feels like a safe environment. It is reminiscent of girl talks or spending time updating your homegirls about the ebbs and flows of life. Vulgar language, slang and transparency are used to describe what each woman is feeling. While Sullivan is known for her vulnerability and relatability in her discography, she’s not the only Black woman to implement these musical characteristics into her art. From Bessie Smith’s song “Empty Bed Blues, Part 1″ (1928) to Beyoncé's whole “Lemonade” album (2016), stylistically, the self-expression in music for Black women has historical Southern roots.
Blues is a genre of music that originated in the Deep South, post-slavery. As the dominant African American music form of that time, it allowed newly freed men and women to openly address their sexuality and showcase autonomy. In Angela Davis’ book “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism,” she says that although the blues talk about love they truly express intellectual independence and representational freedom. As a framework that was specifically used by African Americans, this means the blues genre was the sole outlet they used to revolutionize certain parts of their lives.
In the 1920s and ‘30s, popular music stayed within a certain subject range and did not deviate from the song formula of the period. Pop music covered sweet and sentimental messages and idealized versions of what a heterosexual relationship should be. Music of that time pandered to the white, middle-class, stay-at-home housewife. White women’s lifestyle was not the reality for many Black women because they did not have the same liberties, privileges or resources to have those same experiences.
Blues music, however, juxtaposed the popular music culture.
It was the most prevalent form of music that African American singers used to openly address their overall Black experience, including topics that reflected their social and sexual realities. It had provocative sexual imagery and included lyrics about domestic violence and extramarital relationships—which went against the mainstream music of that period.
Themes from blues music are relevant in the music of today. Davis describes the blues as a way to communicate about relationships, freedom and travel. In Sullivan’s song, “The Other Side,” she explicitly describes all three:
“I’ma move to Atlanta/I’ma find me a rapper/He gon’ buy me a booty/Let me star in the movie/I’ma keep up my fitness/I’ma start me a business/And I’ll never be broke again/Strugglin’, God is my witness.”
This is the chorus of Sullivan’s song where she addresses “securing the bag” culture, or in this case, obtaining money and a luxurious lifestyle. The concept has become increasingly popular over the last few years and is perpetuated by rappers and their significant others, influencers and Instagram models. Sullivan sings about moving away, getting into a relationship with a rapper who can put her in a position to become financially stable and obtaining a fulfilling lifestyle without the labor that is typically expected of Black women. While the specific phrase of “securing the bag” is contemporary, the desire to live freely—in love, finances or lifestyle—has been around even before blues music when enslaved Africans were singing on plantations about their aspirations to be free. Singers embedding wanderlust into their songs transcend decades.
In 1935, singer Billie Holiday emotionally sang in her song “I Wished On the Moon” about a similar desire to have freedom:
“I begged on the star/To throw me a beam or two/I wished on a star/And asked for a dream or two/I looked for every loveliness, it all came true/I wished on the moon for you.”
Similar to the concept of Sullivan’s “Other Side,” Holiday expresses a longing for a better life. She’s making a wish on a star for light to shine on her, for her dreams to come true and to get the partner she desires. Sullivan and Holiday paid homage to the blues tradition by connecting love, sexuality, individuality, freedom and social awareness in their music.
Black artists always had their own dominant form of music. From Negro spirituals, blues then jazz—and most recently R&B and hip hop—Black people use music to tell a story, regardless of what was popular or socially accepted at the time. Stuart Hall, author of “What Is This ‘Black’ In Black Popular Culture?,” explains that since Black people were excluded from the mainstream, Black pop culture was created as a counter-narrative.
Black popular culture is the “linguistic innovations in rhetorical stylization of the body, forms of occupying an alien space, heightened expressions, hairstyles, ways of walking, standing, and talking, and a means of constituting and sustaining camaraderie and community,” Hall says.
According to the author, Blackness, in terms of popular culture, is created out of a diasporic need for a performative space to exist. Between implemented European institutions and African heritage, Black pop culture developed into what we know it as today. Through fashion, hair, and African American Vernacular English (AAVE), Black people created a sense of community.
The spiritual undertone within secular music is also continuous in Black pop culture. Southern gospel music gave the religious and spiritual people hope, with blues music rooted in the same concept as well. Davis quoted theologian James Cone on what his definition of the blues is: “Blues is considered ‘secular spirituals’ because they are impelled by the same search for the truth of Black experience,” he says.
Sullivan’s seventh track, “Donna’s Tale,” has the feel of a secular spiritual. Women are gathered around talking about “tricking”—a concept that means using sexual acts to gain something (usually money) in return—while simultaneously, chords are playing in the background. The women discuss how all of them, including their mothers (which could mean biological, or even church mothers), slept with a man at one point knowing they would get whatever they asked for in return. “Donna’s Tale” comes off as a private conversation that is meant to be shared amongst women who understand. As Hall mentioned, since Black people were not allowed to be in the public sphere, they created a performative space where they can be their authentic selves.
The contributions Black people of the diaspora have made and continue to make in any industry is undeniable. In music specifically, Black women continue to break barriers. Professor and author Daphne A. Brooks used the term “musicking” in “Liner Notes for the Revolution” to explain how Black women musicians made the modern world through music. She says Black women are culture makers; they use music to challenge systems and their approach to music is revolutionary because they are linked to the complexities of Black life. However, although Black women musicians are the blueprint, there are dimensions to this revelation.
Brooks says Black women are often overlooked or underappreciated, misread and mythologized, underestimated and sometimes entirely disregarded. They are oversimplified and simplistically romanticized. Considering the nature of blues music and the increase of the hypersexualized package of current artists like Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion and City Girls—while the approach may be different—Black women musicians continue to push the limits of what is expected of them in the mainstream. They are withstanding being both underestimated by taking up space and disregarded by taking their power back.
Blues music allowed Black women to freely express themselves about topics that were not in the mainstream. It has evolved into R&B, a popular genre of music for Black people today. As Hall mentioned, although it is now appropriated and commodified, originally, Black pop culture was created to provide a space for Black people who were not allowed in the public sphere. Today, artists like Jazmine Sullivan continue to implement blues-like themes into their music. If it wasn’t for the innovation of blues music, we would not have our favorite R&B artists of today.