Gullah Music

Gullah music was originally performed by slaves in South Caroline and Georgia area. Their culture share similar traits with other people in Sierra Leone since that was where many of the slaves in that area came from. The people of Gullah have a distinctive culture and music as opposed to other slaves because large numbers of slaves from one part of Africa were grouped together in one part of the US for their rice farming skills.

Gullah music features a lot of membranophones and other West African instruments. All the instruments were simple, compact, and easy to transport. The performers expect the performance to be participatory in nature with the audience jumping in to dance along with the songs. The songs also featured fast beats and lots of improvisation by both the performers and the audience. These aspects of the music are constant with the music aspects in Sierra Leone.

During the performance, there is often a lot of movements done by the performers. The Gullah shouters often chant phrases while the music is playing. When performing, the Gullah people are either in plain modern clothing or are dresses in traditional loose attire. There are few if any material culture associated with the Gullah music culture. Besides the sale of some CDs and performances, there is not a lot of material culture.