John Legend is a popular African-American artist who carries sounds that are familiar from the periods of the 1920s and 1930s.  His style sounds more jazz/soul and his voice is originally enticing.  I enjoy all of his songs because they have a great rhythm to them and I never get tired of listening to his voice.  This fits into a classical Afro-Amer song because of his use of call and response, motives, and syncopation.

In the time period when minstrelsy was popular, there were many stereotypes and connotations in the minstrel shows about African-Americans that were very degrading.  Because African-American’s needed to participate in the shows in order to make money and to escape from the rural, southern towns and move into bigger, urban cities.  In doing so, the African-Americans were degrading themselves by imitating the white-male imitator imitating African-Americans in “blackface”.    Today I think you can see this same type of concept in some of the  hip-hop/rap music that’s popular across the world.  In many of these songs, the lyrics are very condescending about the stereotypes pertaining to women and African-Americans as well.

Amy Winehouse is a singer-songwriter that has a distinct voice of the soul, jazz and R&B style.  Even though she debuted herself first in the United Kingdom in 2003, she recently has become a huge success in the United States with her hit, “Rehab”.  She has a “old” jazz voice that reminds me of such greats like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.  Her single that I currently enjoy now is “You Know I’m No Good”, her second hit off of her top-of the chart album, “Back to Black”.  Many of her songs reflect her raspy and unique voice that accompanies interesting rhythm and beats.  The song is an original and is based on fictional characters.  I like this song because it is not as over-played as “rehab”, but also that I think it displays more of a jazz-style like the African-American women’s style that we have been studying in class.

Donnie McClurkin and Michael Buble are two artists posted from two of the other students in class.  The first one, Donnie McClurkin was an artist posted by Catherine.  I had never heard of this artist before because he is a gospel singer and I’ve never listenened to new gospel music outside of class.  This artist and song was interesting because it was very modern to today and I liked how Catherine chose to pick it.  The song was “I Call You Faithful” and it was extremely uplifting .  I noticed there was extremely loud vocals and lots of instruments- something typical from the category of gospel.The second artist, Michael Buble, was posted by Chris.  Although I had never heard of this artist before either, I have heard the song he sings.  I have heard the song, “Sway” in movies before, although I can’t remember now which ones.  I think I recognize it because I have always liked this song but never knew who sang it.  Every time I hear it it always makes me want to dance! 

The artist, Alicia J. Augello-Cook, commonly known as Alicia Keys to all, first started her music career at the age of 7 by being influenced from her mother to take piano lessons and to stick with playing.  Alicia comes from a very multi-cultural and biracial family.  Her mother’s heritage is a mix of Irish, Scottish, and Italian, while her father is Jamaican.  Advancing through her high school years by graduating early and getting accepted into Columbia University at the age of 16, Alicia put it all aside and focused on her music.  It was probably one of the best decisions she would ever make because soon after she did this her career took off and she’s been getting bigger ever since.  Alicia is a huge advocator of the AIDS movement, working as a spokeswoman for the non-profit organization, Keep A Child Alive.  The organization provides medicicine for the children and families who have AIDS in Africa.  She makes frequent visits to the different countries in Africa to promote the organization.  Alicia not only supports the AIDS movement, but also plays an important role for Frum Tha Ground Up, which is also a non-profit organization that promotes success of African-American youth. The song, “Like You’ll Never See Me Again”, is an original written by Alicia and another songwriter/producer, Kerry Brothers Jr.  The song hit number one on the Billboard’s Hot 100 list.  The song first was debuted in November 2007.With her powerful and soulful voice, the song captures the essence of her lyrics and makes you really listen to the words that she’s saying.  I think it is a song that every woman can relate too which makes her so original in my eyes.  I believe this relates to this class because Alicia has a strong African-American voice that is full of soul and she twists old R&B style in a new way.  

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