I attended North Carolina State University’s Gospel Choir’s Fall Concert. The concert embodied all elements of the Gospel tradition and musical genre. The choir members looked very presentable and were presented with great uniformity. The girls wore black dresses with red and white flowers pinned to the dresses, the men wore black business attire accompanied by red ties. The Gospel Choir opened up their show using a video production. On the video, various choir members were wearing military fatigues but mimicking the actions of slaves, or war hero’s. As they were mimicking these actions the choir members sang I want it all back by Tye Tribitt. Afterwards the NC State Gospel Praise Dance group did a praise dance to Long as I got King Jesus by Vicky Winans. Afterward, Shaw University was presented and led the congregation in praise and worship. One of the members of the host choir was then introduced and she did an inspirational piece of spoken word. This concluded the first half of the NC State Gospel Choir. For the second half of the concert, the choir only sang three songs: Oh how Wondrous, What if God is Unhappy, Great and Mighty is our God. They had a guest Christian Rap Group that also performed in the second half. This being said the concert was about two hours and it was fairly enjoyable.
During the concert there were many elements of Gospel music that we discussed in class, but there were also a couple elements that we did not discuss. One element that was discussed within the genre of Gospel was the fact that Gospel music encompasses strong references to a deity. One thing I noticed frequently within the concert was that the music could not be clearly attributed to God. Many of the concepts within the songs were vague enough that their meaning could be attributed to anything, in my opinion the songs could be classified as R&B or maybe even spirituals. As discussed in class when we embarked on conversations about Kirk Franklin and the revolution he started within the Gospel movement, a gospel rap group was present at the concert. If you were to hear the song with the exclusion of titles and other clue-in information, one would guess that he was listening to secular rap music; this was a constant concern of mine within the concert. There were a lot of secular influences on music that was supposed to be strictly religious. This led me to make inferences about the Gospel genre and the way it has assimilated in today’s society. In class we discussed how early slaves would participate in ring shouts, in secular music the feet would cross and in