When you look up “Kumbaya” on Urban Dictionary, you get an adjective meaning “blandly pious and naively optimistic.” This is the sense in which Fox News often uses the word to make fun of bleeding heart liberals like me. I learned the song from numerous earnest white folk singers, many of whom learned it from Joan Baez:
But then I read on Anne C Bailey’s blog that “Kumbaya” is a Gullah song, named for the dialect version of the phrase “come by here.” Bailey’s post links to the earliest known recording, a 1926 wax cylinder whose performer is listed only as “H. Wylie.” This version is surprisingly funky for those of us raised on the white folkie version.
I transcribed both Joan Baez and H. Wylie’s versions, and transposed them into C major for ease of comparison:
The lyrics are different, as is the melody, but the most striking difference is the rhythm. The Gullah one is faster, with some light sixteenth note swing. However, the main reason the Gullah one is so much funkier is because it consistently anticipates the third beat in each measure. To understand the significance of this fact, you need to understand what syncopation is.
The diagram below shows different ways you can divide a measure of music by factors of two. In 4/4 time, which is the time signature of most songs you like, you count “one two three four” on the quarter notes: 1, 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4.
Beats are “stronger” or “weaker” depending on how many times you have to divide the circle in half to arrive at them. Beat one is the strongest beat because you don’t divide the circle at all to reach it. The next strongest beat is beat three, which you reach by dividing the circle in half once. Accenting beats one and three is the simplest and most predictable rhythm. It’s the way that white audiences usually clap along with songs.
A syncopated rhythm is one where you accent weaker beats. For example, in the American pop styles that descend from Africa (namely, all of them), you clap on beats two and four, known as the backbeats, at 1/4 and 3/4. Even hipper rhythms accent the beats in between the quarters: 1/8, 3/8, 5/8 and 7/8. It’s especially hip when you accent the weak beats closest to the strong beats. The Gullah version of “Kumbaya” consistently anticipates beat three, the second strongest beat. (Listen to the word “need” and the last syllable in “kumbaya.”) You’re constantly being kept off balance, but because it happens so consistently, you learn to expect it, and it makes for a livelier and more engaging rhythm experience.
Accenting the eighth note before beat three is an especially important syncopation because it’s 3/8 of the way through the bar. Together with the second backbeat at 6/8 of the way through the bar, it forms a rhythmic figure known in Latin music as tresillo. This figure gives you the feeling that the rhythm is in groupings of three subdivisions, even though it’s really in groupings of four subdivisions. This perceptual conflict between triple and duple meter is a mild form of polyrhythm. Here’s a visualization of the rhythm on the Groove Pizza–the kick drum is playing half notes, the hi-hat is playing quarter notes, and the snare drum is playing tresillo.
Wayne Marshall performed some technomusicology on the H. Wylie recording, overlaying tresillo on it using Ableton Live:
Tresillo is absolutely everywhere in American vernacular music, from ragtime to blues to jazz to R&B to rock to country to funk to hip-hop to techno. It’s not just for drummers, either; you hear it in accompaniment patterns, basslines, and melodies too. For example, when beginner guitarists first learn to strum, they almost always instinctively strum tresillo.
“Kumbaya” gained traction among folk revivalists in the 1950s, thanks to the Folksmiths and Pete Seeger. I don’t know who’s to blame for ironing out the syncopation and replacing it with the boring straight rhythms sung by Joan Baez. There’s a variant on “Kumbaya” called “Come By Here” that was sung by Civil Rights movement era protesters, and it uses the same rhythm and melody as the 1926 Gullah version. We should have sung that one growing up.