Gospel Music; Not a Genre of Music

Reggae, Blues, Soul, Highlife, Hiplife, RnB, Afro-pop, Pop, Hip-hop, Country, Traditional folk, Crunk,… these are genres of music; Gospel music isn’t. When you talk about gospel music, you are precisely referring to the text accompanying the music. And when you mention gospel music, then you may be expected to mention secular music.

I believe the confusion stems from the fact that we keep referring to this as ‘Gospel Music’ instead of ‘Gospel Songs’. But tell me, should R. Kelly change the lyrics to his ‘You Saved Me’ to secular, does the genre of his songs change? Or should Kirk Franklin change the lyrics of his ‘Revolution’ from Gospel to secular, does the genre of the music change to Hip-hop? No. ‘Revolution’ has always been Hip-hop. Changing the lyrics from gospel to secular only makes it a secular Hip-hop, and not gospel Hip-hop.

Gospel songs are religious songs. Under the category of religious songs we have sacred music which is on its own a genre of music, since without the texts the music form is still identified. We also have ‘Black gospel’ or ‘Negro gospel’ which actually acts as the foundation of our gospel music today. The difference between ‘sacred music’ and ‘gospel music’ is that whereas ‘Sacred music’ is purely about God and his relationship with man, Gospel music is about man, his relationship with God, with his fellow men, and the society.

The issue is that Gospel music is adaptive; so unlike secular artistes who may stick to particular genres of music, gospel artistes are not bound by such rules. In Ghana, we’ve had Daughters of Glorious Jesus doing mostly funk, highlife –mostly fused with western culture-, Jazz and reggae; Christiana Love doing mostly Highlife and reggae; Cindy Thompson doing mid-tempo highlife; Soul Winners swinging on the wings of Highlife with Jama flavour; Tagoe Sisters with Highlife, and Funk…

The main purpose of Gospel music is to spread the gospel of Christ. Love God, and love thy neighbour as thyself. It is worthy of note that whereas as church songs can be referred to as gospel songs, not all gospel songs can be referred to as church songs. You want to know why? Try singing Christiana Love’s Yaree ye ya, Yaw Sarpong and Asomafo’s Asor no egu or McAbraham’s Hye w’akonoso in church one day.

So the next time you are referring to Daddy Lumba’s ‘Theresah’, Pat Thomas ‘Sika Ye Mogya’ or Amakye Dede’s ‘Handkerchief’ as Highlife, remember not to refer to Daughters of Glorious Jesus ‘Okokoroko’, Tagoe Sisters’ ‘W’atua Maka’ or Christiana Love’s ‘Me wrenfi’ as gospel. They are all Highlife, but in lyrics some are secular, while others are gospel.