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Settling the Gospel Music Confusion: What is Gospel Music?

Herty Borngreat Be My Guest Concert (1)
Herty Borngreat

There are several music genres that have evolved from time past. With the melody, composition, rhythm, and content, one could tell the kind of music genre he or she is listening to. Some of the popular music genres include Hip-hop, Rhythm and Blues (R&B), Hiplife, Highlife, Pop, the almighty Gospel, and many more.

I referred to Gospel as the almighty because it is at the centre of my discussion. Many a times, there are controversies surrounding Gospel as a music genre. A clear distinction has not been made with regards to Gospel music and other forms of music like Hiplife, Hip-hop, Blues, R&B, and Highlife in Ghana and other parts of the world.

To try and solve this controversy, we need to critically examine some aspects of Gospel music and the other forms of music genres. To do this, let us first look into what Gospel music is.

What Really Is Gospel Music?

The word Gospel in itself was derived from old English word “god-spell” meaning good news, good message, or glad tidings. It is often connected to the first four books in the New Testament of the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). The good news here refers to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. That will logically mean any song with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as its central message can be described as a Gospel music. Isn’t it?

Do We Identify A Song As Gospel Music Because of the Beat, the Person, or the Message?

In music, every musician associates him/herself with a particular genre. For example if you mention the name of Reggie Rockstone, everybody will tell you he belongs to the Hiplife class. When Kwabena Kwabena is mentioned, Highlife comes to mind immediately.

What of Esther Smith and Ohemaa Mercy? No doubt we will put them all in the Gospel category. Does it mean whenever a person identifies him/herself with a particular music genre, he/she is stuck to it? No. Let’s take an artist like Chris Brown whose mainstream genre is R&B.  He has on many occasions been credited with making Pop, Hip-hop, and Dance songs.

There are certain kinds of beat that whenever you hear them, you associate it with a particular kind of genre. For example when one listens to “Pizza and Burger” by Sarkodie and Jayso, that fellow might conclude that it is a Hip-Hop song because of the beat. In like manner, anyone would come to a conclusion that Dasebre Dwamena’s “You stole my heart” track is a Reggae track because of the elements that make up the beat accompanying the song. Why don’t we say it’s a Highlife song since he is known to be a Highlife artist?

I am citing these examples to make the analogy between Gospel music and the other genres. If some beats are attributed to specific music genres, I want to know the kind of beat we assigned to Gospel music. If we describe Dasebre’s “You stole my heart” track as a reggae song instead of Highlife because of the beat, should we also describe Cwesi Oteng’s “God dey bless” song as Hip-hop instead of Gospel?

In the other music genres, we are able to describe the song according to the beat. When it comes to Gospel music, it seems that concept has been flawed.

As the name implies, gospel means good news which is centred on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. As I have indicated above, the books Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are referred to as the gospels because the writers of these books recorded the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

If that is the case, does it mean any song that its content falls outside the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus isn’t a Gospel song? I do not want to give examples here because most of the so-called Gospel songs we listen to everyday are nowhere near talking about the life, death and resurrection.

The general idea we all have about Gospel music is that, a Gospel song is any song that has a religious (Christianity) theme as its central message. This is the part where I do not understand why people settle for this… Why do I say that?

Herty Bongreat vrs Obrafour; Any Difference Between the Two?

I have few reasons why I do not think so. How would you describe Herty Bongreat? A Gospel singer I guess. What about Obrafour? No doubt about it that you would say a Hiplife artist. Obrafour is described as such because he does rap songs. Doesn’t Herty Bongreat rap? She sure does. If you haven’t heard her rap before, then I will advise you to listen to her “Except Baba” track. This woman can even rap better than most Hiplife artists I know.

He featured two of Ghana’s best rappers (Sarkodie and Trigmatic) on two separate songs. Are we to depict those songs as Hiplife, Gospel, or Rap Gospel? If people such as Obrafour are labelled as rap artists because they rap, then it will be appropriate to call Herty Bongreat also as a rap artist.

Now, to the songs; let’s compare and contrast. One of the songs on Obrafour’s recent “Asem Beba Dabi” album is “My Praise (M’aseda).” He also has a song titled “Enye Nyame a (If not because of God)” on his debut “Asem Sebe” album. These are all religious based songs that he sung to praise God. Yet, I do not hear people refer to these songs as Gospel songs. Rather, they are classified as Hiplife songs all because Obrafour is a mainstream Hiplife artist. My question is, are we going to classify a Dancehall or Rock song as a Gospel song if it is sang by a mainstream Gospel artist?

Conclusion

There are lots of things to be argued about when this subject pops up. In my opinion, the genre that we call “Gospel” should be clearly defined. In that case, one would know if a Gospel song is a song that either talks only about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, or a song that bases its central idea on religious (Christianity) issues. Or perhaps a song that has a particular beat (like Reggae, Rock, Hip-hop, Dancehall are identified by specific beats) or by a person who calls him/herself as a Gospel artist.



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