This song is called "One Way Ticket to Monrovia." It is quite a popular song because most of the Liberians in America want to return home. Sung by CC Barnard, it represents the lives of many Liberians, like my family, that came here because of the war. Liberia, although a part of Sub-Saharan Africa, is considered to be "Little America" because of the principles, morals, and ideas that the freed slaves from here took to their beloved land of liberty. The African drumming is present, demonstrating a common quality in African music.

  In my religion, music plays a huge part in our worship services. Although I was raised a Baptist, my mother was raised a Catholic and my dad was raised an Episcopal. When both of them went away to boarding school, they got introduced to gospel music and then converted to Baptist. Why? Because of the music. My mother often tells me that after being introduced to the joys of gospel music in a Baptist atmosphere, there was no way she could go back to a regular Catholic church service.

  In my church, we have specific times for singing. However, if the spirit hits someone on the choir, they start to sing and the whole church follows. Gospel music has come from times of slavery, when the slaves would pick cotton and sing songs of how the Lord would come and save them. In order to sing gospel, no particular voice type is required, but a particular style is definitely employed. The singing style is either dramatically loud or quiet and the enunciation of words puts more emphasis on the words themselves.

  I guess gospel is used to express how you really feel about your religion. It’s hard to put all of your emotion into something that you don’t have emotion for. At most of the Baptist churches that I have attended, during or after a song, screaming, shouting, crying, and speaking in tongues happens, and that seems to just be a result of how gospel music represents religion.

  In Charlotte, Christianity is definitely the prevailing religion. There seems to be an equal amount of Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, and Episcopalian churches. Each church community seems to have a different idea of what is beautiful in their music. When I go to Liberian churches, the branch of Christianity is either Catholic or Episcopalian and the singing style is more Baptist, but I think that represents how we as Liberians interact with each other rather than the religion.   

   I am a member of the Charlotte Chapter of a nationally renowned choir called the Gospel Music Workshop of America. When we have rehearsals and performances, we bring people to their feet because of the way that we sing. I know that in the black Baptist community, our music is especially touching because we have rhythms under our music but we have meaningful words as well. This type of style is considered beautiful and typical of a predominantly black, Baptist church.

Musical Autobiography

   Although Western Art Music is a big part of my life (obviously), I also have a big connection to African, Jamaican, and Hispanic music. My family is from Liberia, which is located in West Africa and my paternal grandmother is half Jamaican. All my life, I have been around African and Jamaican music. We have gospel music, popular music, and regular songs such as “Happy Birthday” with African and Jamaican influences. Listening to an example of a popular South African song “Body to Body”, I am able to hear that while there are definite American influences such as Auto-Tune, the music is inherently African. The beat sounds more complex and it seems like the rhythm and percussion aspect of the song is just as important as the singers are.  

    There seems to be a different quality of sound in this music. Playing the different genres of music in my iTunes library, I realized how much of my music sounds similar. I have spoken Spanish since I was four and through my academic career I have been involved with Hispanics and their culture. After all, it’s extremely difficult to speak a different language, and not involve yourself completely in the culture that provides the language. I have classical Spanish guitar music, Latino pop and hip-hop, and Hispanic reggaetone and this music sounds extremely similar to the African and Jamaican music that I grew up with. The biggest audible difference that I heard was between the African, Jamaican, and Latin music, and the American music. For some reason, there seems to be something that American artists include in their music that these other artists don’t. When my parents and their siblings were growing up in Liberia, they were introduced to American music such as Michael Jackson, Gladys Knight, Marvin Gaye and others. I would guess that the reasons that they liked American music so much were because it was different from what they were used to, but that it also has a type of easy, 1-2-3-4 beat that African music doesn’t.

   When pop arose and artists such as Britney Spears, *Nsync, and the Backstreet Boys became popular, I added that type of music to my growing music library. Of course I noticed the difference between that music and the music I was used to, but I liked it. And when hip-hop’s new generation featuring Chris Brown, T-Pain, and Drake grew, I heard how the African. Jamaican, and Hispanic influences were used underneath the melody, but also how they reached a happy medium with pop beats. Today, I realize that artists from other countries such as Rihanna, Bruckup, and Sean Paul use their home music as well as American music, just like artists from my countries and Spanish-speaking countries. The world is becoming one, big, melting pot for music, and I am glad that my culture can contribute to that.

Traditions

Traditions.... Well at my old school we had something called Spirit Week. We participated in Spirit Week the week of Homecoming and each day was a different theme. The first day was Character Day, the second Tacky Day, third Decades Day, fourth College Day, and the last was Spirit Day. On Character Day, we dressed up as different characters from movies. This past year, I dressed up as Mulan. Tacky Day is self-explanatory. My friends and I went all out for this day, planning our outfits weeks in advance and essentially matching the most outrageous parts of our wardrobes together. On Decades Day, we took different styles from the past like the 50's, 60's, 70's and dressed up as people would have then. On College Day, we wore attire from colleges that we had accumulated over the years. Spirit Day we dressed up in our school colors, green and white, and paraded our school pride. I know that at Converse we have 1889 week and while that was fun, I really missed having a Spirit Week. So I propose that one of our traditions be to have a Spirit Week and an 1889 week. That way we can parade our school spirit and pride in two different ways!  

Music..... My favorite music.... Well, first off let me say that I genuinely love every type of music. There are some songs in every genre that I feel the urge to roll my eyes at, but I can honestly say that I have every genre of music on my iPods. I have to say that yes, I do love Drake. Mr. Aubrey Drake Graham. I have every song that he has ever sung, rapped, collaborated on, or even wrote. While his genre is hip-hop/rap, I am not limited to liking just that genre. It really bothers me when someone assumes that I only listen to that particular genre just because of what I look like. What a stupid thing to judge about me. Because being a musician ensures that I must listen to classical as well. My favorite classical composer is none other than Mr. Ludwig van Beethoven. Once again this is kind of a cliche because he is one of the first composers thought of when the genre classical is brought up, but I really do like playing his music. I personally feel like his style of composing covers all aspects of my life, from the happy parts to the more dismal parts, to the dramatic parts and the energetic parts. I also really like artists like Colbie Caillat, Jesse McCartney (I also own every single song he's ever been a part of), and Jason Mraz. These particular artists fall into the genre I like to call "feel-good music". I can never be depressed when I get done dancing around my room listening to music like this. It just makes me feel good! These were just a few artists that I like but I really do have EVERY GENRE!!!!!!!!!! 

Drinking Age

  I, like many of my peers, have been affected by the use of alcohol from middle school. I am not the type of person to drink at all and I have never had a drink once before in my life. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for everyone. Before I discuss my views on lowering the drinking age, I would like to tell a little story. There was this crazy party near the end of summer, and everyone who was anyone was there. There was drinking involved and one of the guys involved was going into the military. Well, this particular guy (let's call him Joe) got so drunk that he started throwing up uncontrollably. He passed out. No one knew if he was even still living because there seemed to be no chest motion. In the city that I live in, everyone knows everyone. Not because Charlotte, NC is small, but because everyone that lives in South Charlotte goes to school together and participates in societal events together. Imagine seeing someone that you've known since the 6th grade passed out and not moving on the floor. Maybe you should have stopped him from drinking so much. Maybe if you had tried, his eyes wouldn't be rolled back in his head. None of that even matters anymore though because the damage has been done. 
  I can see why some people would argue for the drinking age being lowered. It's true that at 18 we can register to vote and are not allowed to drink legally. It's true that in other cultures, alcohol is introduced at a young age not as something to abuse, but more as a sign of cultural respect. It's true that in America that type of culture is not present. But does the fact that we haven't been exposed to it mean that we are allowed to take drinking to an extreme just because we weren't gifted with the ability to limit ourselves with its use? 
   The answer is no. If the drinking age is lowered, some people will still take advantage of it and if we continue with this level of illegal drinking something will break. It seems to me that the drinking age will have to be lowered anyway, because jail time is a repercussion of underage drinking already and it doesn't seem to be having an effect. If we were all taught to drink responsibly instead of sneaking an excess of alcohol I believe that the level of illegal drinking will be lowered. Underage drinking won't be completely obliterated by lowering the drinking age, but perhaps America's youth will not take advantage of alcohol and situations like my first-hand account will not be a regular occurrence anymore.

Hmmmmm.... If I were to give advice to new students what would I say? I think I would start off by saying that while boys are nice to have around, it's actually easier to get work done when they aren't always there. Being a music student, whenever I have private practice time, I thank God that there are no boys here because they really throw me off my game. Instead of focusing on my music, I would focus on if looking good while playing my music and those two actions just don't mix. Girl drama is also something else that can be detrimental to focusing in school. At this point, I'm just witnessing all the drama around me and I'm wondering how on earth living with the drama and doing what I am supposed to do is going to work. Hopefully, I'll see my way through this and then I'll have something to advise my little sisters about. On the positive side however, going to an all-girls school definitely has it's upside! There's always someone to talk to and there's always someone to have a girl's night out with. Whether it's a spur-of-the-moment thing to order Chinese takeout and have it delivered to the dorms or a crazy midnight IHOP run, it's fun to know that because we are all girls, these types of things are the norm.