Call and Response
An exchange between a leader (call) and a group (response), central to African American music.
What it means
Call and response describes a musical question-and-answer principle: a leading singer or instrumentalist states a short musical phrase, the call, and a group answers it with its own, often fixed phrase. This exchange repeats continuously and structures the piece.
The principle originates in West African musical traditions and reached African American music in North America through the forced migration of enslaved people.
Musical use
Call and response shapes central African American genres such as the work song, the spiritual, gospel, and the blues, where the song of a leader is taken up by the congregation or choir. From these roots the principle went on to influence jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, and hip-hop, for instance in the exchange between a solo horn and a big band, or between a rapper and an audience.
Call and response should be distinguished from a simple echo, in which only the same phrase is repeated: in call and response, the group usually answers with its own, though fitting, musical formula.