Music plays an integral role in the modern society as it did in the past. Music allows the people to communicate their beliefs, their values, and culture in an entertaining way. Virtually everybody is influenced by a particular type of music depending on their tastes and the aspects of the music that they love. In the globalized world, music enables people to share and exchange their culture all over the world. Music harbors some unique ability for the listeners to sympathetically relate to foreign sets of values and cultures typical of the producers and the artists behind the songs. Ideally, you cannot dissociate music from politics because music is used to affirm national values and reminds people of their origin as well as the struggles they underwent to achieve what they have achieved over time. For instance, folk music is critical in telling of the American history in particular for the African American communities since it traces the roots of their origin. My interviewee happened to be Smith Allan who loves and cherishes the folk music, therefore; he shed much light on the music. In the paper, I seek to use his responses to examine the issue of politics of identity in the folk music.
Smith was quick to point out why he loved the folk music; he said that folk music plays a role in reminding the Americans their origins especially the African American communities of their origin, the trial and tribulations their fore fathers underwent as well as the good times they had when they conquered during hardships. It can be noted that the folk music made the whites to interact with the blacks for the core purpose of enjoying the music and subsequently some were getting to be influenced in loving and appreciating the Negro community. It is the music has made the whites to start rethinking about national unity and assimilation. As (Melone 59) notes, the origin of folk music is not precisely known, but he believes that it is a result of confluence or the interaction of two mighty cultural streams of the British-Celtic and African. The interaction allowed the exchange of beliefs and cultures among the people making them see the importance of assimilating particular aspects of each culture to come up with the folk music, which became a defining factor in ensuring unity between the ex-slaves and their masters. The aspects of the music remind both the whites and the blacks their origins despite the animosity, which was among them hence helping them to understand the history of the American people.
During the 1930s when there was the Depression the folk music revival brought together the scholars, the cultural preservationists, political activists, and the public folklorists with the main agenda of preserving the folk music (Street, 115). The people shared a common belief that folk music came from the American people and thus it encompassed the experiences of the citizens. They argued that folk music was a critical component in the nation's cultural heritage and to them, the music revealed the true essence of an American National Identity. The social movements of the time considerably used folk music because it was popular and showed that they were nationalists who loved their country. During this time, the revivalists who had recognized the inherent plurality of the American society and hence used the music to ensure that national identity was also reflected in the social reality using the folk music. This was done by using the music to bring together the folk music communities together forming a national listening audience. The music provided an avenue for the communities to present their traditions directly to the listening public. The music gave a voice to the communities that thought that they were politically and economically marginalized since they had found a medium through which they could channel their frustrations and reaffirm that they were American citizens
As Smith noted folk music played an integral role in making sure that each citizen felt appreciated for the things, they did for the nation. Folk music was reviewed to include the traditions of the minority of the communities in the national culture and to ensure that they had full access to the both the local and national politics (Mitchell). The use of the music helped them to realize that they were part of the American dream and therefore they had to fight for their rights as citizens. Through the music, they pushed the leadership to reform the social, political and economic systems to make sure that all the Americans enjoyed the ideals brought forth in the music. The revivalists brought folk music into all the programs of social and political activism because of the belief that the folk music genre was political in itself. Just as my respondent said, folk music is a genre that expressed and continues to express the interests, concerns, the values and the experiences of the American people. The music was used to bring the people together due to the shared goals of the people that needed to be voiced. The people believe that the music is by nature democratic because the songs produced expressed the oral traditions among the people because they were adopted by the people to suit their interests (Knights 50). The music was a uniting factor for the people during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It also acted as a vehicle for carrying the ideological message to all American citizens.
Another aspect of folk music is that it is often simple music, which is easy to be played and played. Many people argue that the music can be played with just a guitar and a few singers, therefore; it can be used to influence a group of listeners even if the instruments used are few. In the struggle, political activists can use the music to create awareness and raise the morale of the protesters. Folk music did not belong to anybody in particular and therefore it could be used as a national heritage and hence coarse the people towards a given course of action (Roy). Therefore, the music became a very important tool because it acted as a cultural medium in which young political activists could use to make issues of national interest known to the people.
In brief, the folk music plays a major role in giving the American people their identity. In the folk music, the history of the American is realized through the themes of the songs. The music encompasses cultures, beliefs, and values of the people. The music was used and is still being used by political activists to push the government to value the people and the rich American history. The music is simple, therefore; it is of great interest to many people with the themes being of national interest such as fostering unity among the people. The fact that folk music involved a combination of different cultures for both the blacks and the whites made it possible to be adopted by all in the quest of building a national identity.