Wednesday, October 9All That Matters

The Jubalaires were an American gospel group known for their rhythmic rhyming verses, which would later evolve into rapping. Here seen performing their song ‘Noah’. (1946, colorized)

The Jubalaires were an American gospel group known for their rhythmic rhyming verses, which would later evolve into rapping. Here seen performing their song ‘Noah’. (1946, colorized)

The Jubalaires were an American gospel group known for their rhythmic rhyming verses, which would later evolve into rapping. Here seen performing their song ‘Noah’. (1946, colorized)

The Jubalaires were an American gospel group known for their rhythmic rhyming verses, which would later evolve into rapping. Here seen performing their song ‘Noah’. (1946, colorized) from OldSchoolCool




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40 Comments

  • Crustythe1

    K, this is just fascinating to watch and listen to. Can absolutely hear the roots of rap and rockabilly in this Christian music. And the voices! Ahhh, so freaking cool.

    Edit:

    For clarification, I was not trying to claim that Christianity had anything to do with the start of rap music.

    And I still hold my assertion about it being roots for rap, listening to the rhythmics of it.

  • Attygalle

    God said to Noah, there’s gonna be a floody-floody.

    Rain came down, it started to get muddy, muddy.

    Get those animals, out on the arky-arky.

    [edit] Only one person noted that I messed up the text – “out of the arky-arky” was what I typed. Apparently my memory is not as good as yours, u/SnortingCoffee!

  • Chicken_Moustache

    Sorry to be that guy but a lot of old blues had this prerap phrasing too, as well as jamaican and creole music. It didn’t just come from one place.

  • MeetFried

    This… is simply not true. At all. Like what a wild take on rap music. Rap music evolved from Reggae out of the South Bronx. The idea came from DJ’s or Selecta’s that used to battle each other. Although this style is progressive and can be attributed to our style of singing throughout genres, the Jubalaires were nowhere close to the roots of rap. And this is gross.

  • STEP1GOD

    Suggesting this is like the origins of rap or that rap wouldn’t exist without these guys would be a wild and incorrect take,

  • myworkaccount765

    I can hear some similarities between them and Johnny Cash….kinda cool to see the inspiration they/other similar groups had in him.

  • ValyrianJedi

    I was in New Orleans for work a few years ago and a few coworkers and I decided to go to a football game in Oxford Mississippi over the weekend… Were planning to drive all the way up after work Friday but a crazy storm blew up when we were half way there so we stopped in some town in middle of nowhere Mississippi with a population of like a few hundred…

    It was like time forgot the place. There was one bar in town next to the motel so we went there, as hole in the wall as holes in the walls get, and a group *just* like this was performing. They’d perform a song or two, then a 100 year old looking blues guy would play a song or two. Then at the end of the night they played together with this gospel singer type woman with pipes that blew the roof off the place… To this day that was easily one of the top musical performances of any type that I’ve seen in my life…

    Everyone was super nice too. Even though we stuck out like sore thumbs as both the only white people and close to the only people under 60, when we were all under 30. My assistant had the time of her life. By the end of the night all these 70 year old women were teaching her dance moves and the men were all kissing her hand and telling her how beautiful she was and all. It was something else. The experience alone made me start listening to that music some.

  • PtansSquall

    The video for this going around Instagram and TikTok includes a drum track added to the background, glad to see the original here

  • HermesCat

    Tried to remember where I heard a similar sound and then recalled the gospel album sung by Elvis Presley that had a song eerily similar to this one.

  • Realistic_Ad3795

    I have a lot of their old recording digitized. Very cool stuff.

    For some clarification, the rhythmic speaking goes way earlier than them, though. There are reocrdings from Tin Pan Alley that are closer to literal rapping and it was common. And those folks also weren’t the likely originators.

  • nivenfan

    I hope Eddie Murphy sees this and thinks he could star in a pretty good bio pic about this guy. They have similar vocal styles.

  • quietflowsthedodder

    Not sure how you would consider this a precursor to rap. This is Gospel music. This same song was recorded by Bing Crosby and a number of other 40s and 50s “rappers” (😆). I think it may be pretty far removed from the rapper development path!

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