Kumbaya
Sign in to saveAlso known as Kumbayah, Kum ba yah, Kumbaya, my Lord, Kumbayah, my Lord, Kum ba yah, my Lord
"Kum ba yah" ("Come by here") is an African-American spiritual of disputed origin, known to have been sung in the Gullah culture of the islands off South Carolina and Georgia, with ties to enslaved Central Africans. Originally an appeal to God to come to the aid of those in need, the song is thought to have spread from the islands to other Southern states and the North, as well as to other places outside the United States.
Key facts
- Song.name
- Kum ba yah
- Song.type
- song
- Song.genre
- Gospel, spiritual
- Song.recorded
- 1926, H. Wylie
- Song.image
- Come By Here Kumbaya Transcription of 1926 recording.jpg
- Song.alt
- Transcription of the song "Come By Here" from a 1926 recording by H. Wylie
- Song.caption
- "Come By Here", transcribed by J. Cutting from the singing of H. Wylie, 1926
via Wikipedia infobox
~12 min read
Encyclopedic overview
7 sectionsContents
- Origins
- Folk music revival and the civil rights movement
- Political usage
- Lyrics
- See also
- References
- External links
"Kum ba yah" ("Come by here") is an African-American spiritual of disputed origin, known to have been sung in the Gullah culture of the islands off South Carolina and Georgia, with ties to enslaved Central Africans. Originally an appeal to God to come to the aid of those in need, the song is thought to have spread from the islands to other Southern states and the North, as well as to other places outside the United States.
The first known recording was made by the folklorist Robert Winslow Gordon in 1926. It features an unaccompanied tenor voice identified only as "H. Wylie" singing in the Gullah language. The piece became a standard campfire song in Scouting and summer camps and enjoyed broader popularity during the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. In American politics, the song title gave rise to the phrase "sing Kumbaya", commonly employed sarcastically to criticize expectations of reconciliation as unrealistic.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Kumbaya” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.