Black Music Month and Gullah/Geechee Sounds
June is “Black Music Month” which gives Gullah/Geechees a specific time to celebrate what they already love to make-music. The Spirituals are the official music of the Gullah/Geechee Nation and the state of South Carolina due to the fact that they were created by native Gullah/Geechees on plantations of the Sea Islands. Not only have these Spiritual sounds been exported from the Gullah/Geechee Nation‘s coast and disbursed around the world, numerous genres of music owe their beginnings to being birthed out of those that grew up in the church and sang the Spirituals.
As Gullah/Geechee music evolves, so do the locations in which one can hear it sung by natives at numerous venues. Gullah/Geechee songstress, Latrese Bush will be featured at the Mitchelville Juneteenth Celebration on Saturday, June 15, 2019 on Hilton Head Island, SC
and folks in Columbia, SC will be able to party the night away to the soulful sounds of Gwen Yvette as she presents the “Sounds of Soul” at Chayz Lounge. Tickets can be obtained at
Beth Inabinett who was recently inducted in the South Carolina State Jazz Hall of Fame will be part of “Who’d of Funk It” at the Augusta Common in August, GA on June 23rd at 7:30 pm.
For those that want to sing the songs of freedom with their children, they can join Queen Quet. Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation (www.QueenQuet.com) at her annual Juneteenth presentation at the Colleton County Memorial Library in Walterboro, SC on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 at 10 am. The event is FREE and part of the Summer Reading Program. Although Queen Quet won’t be showing sheet music to read since the Spirituals were not created to be set to notes on a page, she will be taking everyone on a lyrical journey through the Gullah/Geechee Nation to the soul found in the sounds of freedom along the southeastern coast during “A Gullah/Geechee journey een de Universe of Stories.”
No matter where your journey takes you during the month of June, make sure you go out and support the artists that continue to bless us with Black music.
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- Tagged: Black Music Month, Chayz Lounge, Geechee, Georgia, Gullah, gullah geechee nation, GwenYvette, Juneteenth, Latrese Bush, Mitchelville, music, Queen Quet, South Carolina, the sprituals