The Spiritual Roots of Electronic Dance Music (Part 1)

Electronic music is the experimental art of making music with machines and technology. It emerges in Germany with composers like Stockhausen, and France with the Musique Concrète of Pierre Schaffer and Pierre Henry (Holmes, 2012, p.162, (Reveillac, 2019, p.3). This early style of electronic music features blips and blops, strange otherworldly sounds, sampling of nature and city sounds, and never before heard synthesised noises that were to revolutionise the way we make music today. The roots of electronic music are experimentation, initiated by composers who were not focused on making people dance, but in pushing the boundaries of sound and composition, often from a classical point of view. It wasn’t until the early 1980’s that House music emerges from the clubs of Chicago and New York (Martin, 2013, p.84). House music differs from previous electronic music, having a particular sound that uses machines and technology focused on making people dance. Its roots are not only technological but spiritual, having links to earlier African and Latin ritual practices that had a desire for unity, freedom, and transcendence. In this article we will explore the roots of House music, and show how current Electronic Dance Music (EDM) continues the spiritual tradition of its early House predecessors, both from a practical, technological, and philosophical standpoint.

What is House Music ?

House music emerges in the early 1980s, a development from earlier disco music and departure from the previous experimental and intellectual European styles of electronic composition. House music prioritises rhythm and drumbeats for the purposes of dance (Jori, 2018, p.471), and is typified by four-on-the-four kick drum and off-beats hi-hats. It emerges from African American and Latino sub-cultures in iconic clubs like ‘The Warehouse’ in Chicago, and the ‘Paradise Garage’ in New York (Martin, 2013, p.84). House music features soulful Gospel vocals, energetic drumbeats, and Afro-Latin rhythms and pianos, with electronic synthesisers and drum machines to give the music a futuristic and repetitive quality (Rietveld, 2011, p.8, McLeod, 2001, p.66). The use of machines provided an otherworldly sound that aided its spiritual aesthetic, and provided the driving beat that make it perfect for dance and trance. DJ techniques were incorporated from Jamaican Dancehall so that music was non-stop and continuous (Réveillac, 2019, p.26), further intensifying the evocation towards movement and altered consciousness. 

Connection of House to Afro-Latin Spirituality

The emergence of House music from African American and Latino sub-cultures is significant. These ethnicities had cultural proclivities to movement and trance that evolved from religious ritual practices in Africa and Latin America. These include influences from Christian church and Yoruba-based religions that had arrived in the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade and developed into the main diasporic sites in Brazil, Haiti, and Cuba. One of these diasporic religions is Santeria, a Cuban religion evolved from West African Yoruba peoples, and spread into Latin America and the United States.

In New York by the late 1940s, communities of Cuban Santeria had developed locally and featured the importation of local Cuban ritual practices into America. These practices included rituals of trance and spirit possession using intricate drum rhythms and songs, and initiation ceremonies which consecrated devotes to Caribbean gods, known as orishas. These practices attracted Latinos, such as Cubans and Puerto Ricans, due to their preservation of traditional Caribbean spiritual practices, and African Americans who saw it as a link to an African ancestry. In 1950s New York, the community of practitioners practicing orisha worship increased dramatically with the increased migration of Cuban ritual musicians and priests, and the advent of localised initiations in many areas of the city (Amira 2015, p.225). These eventually spread into other regions of the United States, also attracting Anglo-Americans who were drawn to the religion for its African roots (Amira, 1992, p.9).

The influence of these spiritual traditions on American music was notable. Santeria practitioners like Mongo Santamaria and Julio Collazo contributed to music that blended the drums and songs of Santeria, symbolising an Afro-Latin heritage and identity, while contributing to the rise of salsa music (Frias 2019, p.123). Further blending of these Latin traditions with local influences began to form new musical combinations that were more palatable for a Western ear, such as Boogaloo, which integrated Cuban Chachacha with RnB, or Latin Jazz, which fused jazz with Latin rhythm and song (Frias 2019, p.74). One of the major Puerto Rican stars of Latin Music in America, Tito Puente, incorporated many Santeria musicians in his music, introducing the sounds of Santeria to a wider non-Latino community.

During the 1960s and 70s, the cultural heritages of Latin and African orisha worship communities began to diverge. For Latinos, the spiritual practices served as a tangible connection to a specific Caribbean location, while for African Americans, it provided a means to restore and strengthen ancestral ties to Africa, while also facilitating engagement with other metaphysical sciences and spiritual traditions, such as Christianity and Eastern religions (Hucks, 2012, p.272). For both communities, these syncretic spiritual practices provided identity and means for authentic expression and connection with community, and bolstered pride in an Afro-Latino cultural heritage by offering specific ways to connect with their gods.

House music emerges within this context, an elaboration of earlier disco music by African American and Latino sub-cultures that championed freedom of expression, pride, and self-reliance (Martin, 2013, p.84). House music parties offered alternate spaces for connection to a higher power, evoking a primal spiritual experience free from the constraints of oppressive church teachings (Martin, 2013, p.84-87). Often the music used sampled Gospel songs- a symbol of the church- with its spiritual narrative evident in the early descriptions of house music events as "going to church" (Martin, 2013, p.87). Alternatively, these events were associated with the worship of African deities and its diasporas, where "to dance is to invite the gods," blurring the lines between the sacred and secular (Martin, 2013, p.89).

The Evolution of a Spiritual Philosophy in EDM

The spiritual narrative of early House included the evocation of trance, a core element of African-based spiritual practices and its Latin diasporic offspring. Developed through its music and context, House featured repetitive drumbeats, sampled gospel lyrics, immersive dark spaces, and other musical techniques that resonated with previous experiences of church and African-based worship practices. As House music evolves into modern Electronic Dance Music (EDM), many of the same tropes endure, including repetitive grooves used to compel dancers to trance, palpable energy surges on the dance floor causing ecstasy, and heightened states of consciousness (Sylvan 2009, p.127, 137). These effects and practices of EDM have been linked to West African spirit possession practices (Sylvan 2002, p.46) developed using new technologies within new contexts. Primary in these spirit possession practices is the feeling that one is overtaken by an external god, a mounting of the body by higher spirit (Murphy 2012, p.71, 89). A similar feeling is reported by EDM DJs who, during heightened states, describe a feeling of invisibility and guidance in all musical decisions by an external force (Sylvan 2009, p.138).

The philosophical foundations of early House music involve the creation of alternate spaces for African Americans and Latinos to connect with a higher power, evoking spiritual experience, while providing a sense of identity and pride of culture. This philosophy continues to evolve in modern EDM, beyond its initial ethnic makeup and contexts, but still centered on a desire for unity, freedom of expression, and altered states. Altered states in modern EDM include feelings of flying, pleasurable bodily sensations, and heightened skin sensations, effects intricately linked to spirituality (Solberg and Dibben 2019, p.385). These experiences provide transcendent effects outside conventional religious frameworks: a spirituality devoid of religious connotations and centered on pleasure and social connectivity (Graham St John 2017, p.14).

My own 2024 PhD research explores the evolution of Afro-Latin music practices in modern EDM, highlighting the evolution of techniques and performance approaches. It proposes a continuation of musical techniques, adapted from West African music philosophy, evolved in Latin America, and developed into EDM. These developments persist because of our innate psychological need for transcendent experiences, and the effectiveness of these ancient music practices in evoking trance states. My work explores the evolution of these approaches and outlines a performance philosophy underlying musical developments. This philosophy, or framework, is a technology for creating heightened states, such as trance, having its roots in West African spiritual worship but evolved into other arenas where ecstasy and social connection is critical.

In Part Two, I will outline the core features of EDM that have their roots in Afro-Latin trance music, showing the development of a spiritual music philosophy from Africa to Latin America, and now into global music contexts.  

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References

Amira, J. (2015), Añativity: A personal account of the early batá community in New York City. In Ed. Villepastour, A. ,The Yoruba God of Drumming: Transatlantic perspectives on the wood that talks, University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, USA.

Frías, J., (2019). Afro-Cuba Transnational: Recordings and the Mediation of Afro-Cuban Traditional Music, Doctoral dissertation, City University of New York.

Holmes, T., (2012). Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music and Culture.

Routledge, Oxfordshire, UK

Hucks, T. E. (2012), Yoruba Traditions and African American Religious Nationalism, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

Jóri, A., (2018). ‘On the terminology of electronic (dance) music’ Rasprave: Časopis Instituta za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje, 44(2), pp.467-483.

Martin, D.C., (2013), Is This the Dance Floor or a Revival Meeting? Theological Questions and Challenges from the Underground House Music Movement. In Ed. Coleman, M., Ain’t I a Womanist too: Third Wave Womanist Religious Thought, 1517 Media, Fortress Press.

McLeod, K., (2001). ‘Genres, subgenres, sub-subgenres and more: Musical and social differentiation within electronic/dance music communities’, Journal of Popular Music Studies, 13(1), pp.59-75.

Murphy, J.M., (2012). “Chango ‘ta vein’/Chango has come”: Spiritual Embodiment in the Afro-Cuban Ceremony, Bembé. Black Music Research Journal, 32(1), pp.69-94.

Réveillac, J.M., (2019). Electronic Music Machines: The New Musical Instruments. John Wiley & Sons, NY

Rietveld, H., C., (2011), Disco’s Revenge: House Music Nomadic Memory. In Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture, Vol.2: (1): 4-23. Accessed on 26/2/24 at https://dj.dancecult.net/index.php/dancecult/article/view/298

Solberg, R.T. and Dibben, N., (2019). Peak experiences with electronic dance music: Subjective experiences, physiological responses, and musical characteristics of the break routine. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 36(4), pp.371-389

St John, G., (2017). ‘Electronic dance music culture and religion: an overview’ Electronica, Dance and Club Music, pp.243-267.

Sylvan, R., (2002). Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music. NYU Press, NY

Glossary

Electronic Dance Music (EDM): a broad genre of music created primarily using electronic instruments, synthesisers, and digital production techniques. It encompasses various subgenres, including house, techno, trance, drum and bass, dubstep, and more. 

House music: a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) that originated in the early 1980s in Chicago and New York. It is characterized by a steady 4/4 beat, repetitive rhythms, and a tempo typically between 120–130 BPM.

Orishas: deities in the Santeria religion, which originates from the Yoruba people of West Africa (primarily present-day Nigeria, Benin, and Togo).

Santeria: an Afro-Caribbean religion that originated in Cuba through the syncretism of Yoruba spiritual traditions with Roman Catholicism. It involves the worship of orishas (deities or spirits), rituals, divination, drumming, and offerings.