Voices On The Mountain: Black Music Overcoming

 Grace Smith

Jaleesa Harris

African American Literature

1 March 2026

Voices On The Mountain: Black Music Overcoming

The black poet, Langston Hughes, wrote a piece titled “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” In this Hughes exclaims his desire for black artists and black people to celebrate their art for its blackness and not try to hide this quality. Hughes, in this work, describes black artists breaking out of the mold of white art and sensibilities, regardless of the recognition this got the artists. At the close of his work, Hughes says, “if he [the black artist] accepts any duties at all from outsiders, to change through the force of his art that old whispering ‘I want to be white,’ hidden in the aspirations of his people, to ‘Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro- -and beautiful!.’” Here we can see that Hughes wants black people to have unashamed pride in their skin, and their creations. We can tell that he wants black people to view themselves and their art not as incomplete or incompetent because of the lack of whiteness, but to view themselves and their art as accomplished, black, and beautiful. 

Songs Celebrating Blackness:

• Almeda, By Solange

• Black Leaves, By KIRBY

• Yucky Bluck Fruitcake, By Doechii

Almeda is a part of the album ‘When I Get Home’. Solange drew on her black Southern roots when writing this album and that is evident through the sound. In Almeda, Solange shows pride in her blackness by repetition of the lines “Brown liquor, brown sugar, brown face. Brown liquor, brown sugar, brown braids. Black skin, black Benz, black plays. Black molasses, blackberry the masses.” These lines are accompanied by a wonder-like tone affirming the beauty in this blackness.

Black Leaves is a gospel like song that explores the “grit and glory” of enslaved African Americans in Mississippi. “Black leaves on a Mississippi river.” The song goes on to uplift black women with the lines, “God made women with an iron hand, raised her up on Heaven’s land.”

Yucky Blucky Fruitcake brings us through the youth of Doechii, the artist. She details her struggles matter-of-factly and confidently declares herself as “A black girl who beat the statistics.” 

Songs Exploring Dichotomy:

• Waterboy, By Paul Robeson

• I Lied To You, By Miles Canton, Sinners Movie

• Black Girl Memoir, By Doechii

Waterboy has an interesting quality about the context of the song. Thought to have originated from African American prison workers, the lyrics plead the value of their work and ask for water to quench their thirst. What is interesting about this song though, is that depending on who sang it, the purpose behind it changed. But in the case of Paul Robeson who put it to tape in the 1920’s he wanted the audience of this song to view a shared bit of human emotion that didn’t address racial differences. It draws on the assimilation half of the binary taught in this course, and in some ways ignores the alleged origins of the tune.

I Lied To You, a song from the 2025 horror film Sinners, tells us the relationship between a pastor father and his son. The son tells his father who has sworn off the blues as dangerous and devilish according to the Christian bible, that he lied to him: “I lied to you, I love the blues.” This is reminiscent of how Christianity was used to suppress black voices and keep enslaved people pliant.

Black Girl Memoir is an ode to the internal and external struggles of dark-skinned black women. It makes mention of how she wishes she was ‘lighter’ skinned, “I wish I wasn't dark so I could look like 'Yonce.” Doechii also goes on in the song to describe how “I [Doechii] could be anything” and her desire to change herself and where she is physically to escape the cage discrimination has born her into. 

Songs Of Struggle and Resistance:

• Mississippi Goddam - Live, By Nina Simone 

• DUCKWORTH, By Kendrick Lamar

Nina Simone wrote Mississippi Goddam after hearing about the horrific 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four young black girls. Her lyrics are the bullets that she could not unleash on the Ku Klux Klan members who committed the bombing. This song conveys her deep rage at what was happening to her people. The beginning of verse 3 in the song reads, “Pickett lines, school boycotts. They try to say it’s a communist plot. All I want is equality. For my sister, my brother, my people, and me.”

DUCKWORTH tells the story of a chance meeting between Kendrick Lamar’s father and his label boss, Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith. His father known as “Ducky” worked at a KFC and Top Dawg while evading the police robbed that same KFC. Top Dawg liked Ducky and it is possible that because of that Ducky’s life was spared that day. Kendrick’s last words on the track note how different his and Top Dawg’s lives would have been if his father had been killed that day. “Because if Anthony killed Ducky, Top Dawg could be servin’ life while I grew up without a father and die in a gun fight.”

Songs Promising A Better Tomorrow:

• Go Tell It On The Mountain, Sung By The Golden Gospel Singers

• Tomorrow Is My Turn, By Nina Simone

• Alright, By Kendrick Lamar

• Keep Ya Head Up, By 2Pac

• A Change Is Gonna Come, By Sam Cook

Church hymnals and spirituals have been an important part of African American culture. Go Tell It On the Mountain is one of the most well known African American spirituals. It is a song that tells its listeners to spread the news far and wide that “Jesus Christ is born.”

Tomorrow Is My Turn is about unabashed, deserved conviction that the next day is your turn. You aren’t doubting, you aren’t regretting, and you aren’t fearing because tomorrow is your day, your turn. So, look to tomorrow because it’s all yours.

Alright, by Kendrick Lamar is a track that expresses coming through the other side of adversity no matter the struggle. The repeated line “we gone’ be alright” serves as a mantra to black people that they will be alright despite the odds put against them.

2Pac, also known as Tupac Shakur, is one of the most well known and beloved rappers of America. He released his 1993 album titled “Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z…” containing the track Keep Ya Head Up. This track is a celebration of black women and encourages them to “keep ya head up” despite the adversity thrown at them. 

A Change Is Gonna Come tells the hope of Sam Cook that the world will be different. The song gives a vague description of and act of discrimination that he faces, but he is still determined of future change in spite of that. “It’s been a long time coming, but I know change gon’ come.”

Playlist Link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgBlHmzXAAVjenffdKmjtjJznLunwheoY&si=f5738OEwVj_4oesy