Literature of the Black Diaspora and the Performance of Caribbean and African American Aural Texts

Abstract

The second half of the twentieth century, witnessed a new kind of literature often referred to as "Literature of the Black Diaspora; its appearance and acceptance into mainstream world literature was not without hostilities: overcame what seems like a futile effort, and now a major world literature. One salient feature of literature of the black Diaspora is the representation of aural texts in its composition and reception. This paper is therefore designed to examine the concept and performance of Afro-Caribbean and African American aurality as African legacy and constituent of the Black Literature. This paper, with reference to specific oral and aural texts, discovers that the performance of orality and aurality is a veritable heritage of the Caribbean and African American poetry and this criticism of the black vernacular tradition ranging from the spirituals and blues to jazz, calypso, reggae, hip-hop, gospel, and other contemporary poetic forms indicates that African American and Afro-Caribbean music is particularly rich in mixture of African tradition. The tradition was heralded by the forceful movement of Africans from their native land, through the middle passage, and their ultimate adaptation to a new land. Thus, music is to Africa as the anvil is to the blacksmith, and slavery was the surface on which American and Caribbean music was forged no matter how refined they are now. Aside emotional needs, as with Baldwin and Du Bois, music gives black people ―ability to say ―things‖ that otherwise cannot be said- blurs that boundary between the white man and the black man‖.