The singing voice of a black woman

[Darth Wong]

This may sound racist and maybe it is, but it's always seemed to me that there are plenty of times that I hear a female singer on TV, and there's a certain tonality to it that says to me "that's a black chick". And then I turn around and look, and lo and behold, it is a black chick.

Now I'm not saying this in a negative way. I actually like the sound, and my money says that Aretha Franklin was the greatest singer ever. But what is that sound? Is it my imagination? I can't put my finger on it. Is there a certain way that black girls are taught to sing, or do black womens' voices actually have a slightly different tone to them? Or am I the only one who perceives this difference at all?

[Coriolis]

This may sound racist and maybe it is, but it's always seemed to me that there are plenty of times that I hear a female singer on TV, and there's a certain tonality to it that says to me "that's a black chick". And then I turn around and look, and lo and behold, it is a black chick.

Now I'm not saying this in a negative way. I actually like the sound, and my money says that Aretha Franklin was the greatest singer ever. But what is that sound? Is it my imagination? I can't put my finger on it. Is there a certain way that black girls are taught to sing, or do black womens' voices actually have a slightly different tone to them? Or am I the only one who perceives this difference at all?

Yeah, I can't quite tell what it is, but the same thing happens to me.

[RedImperator]

This may sound racist and maybe it is, but it's always seemed to me that there are plenty of times that I hear a female singer on TV, and there's a certain tonality to it that says to me "that's a black chick". And then I turn around and look, and lo and behold, it is a black chick.

Now I'm not saying this in a negative way. I actually like the sound, and my money says that Aretha Franklin was the greatest singer ever. But what is that sound? Is it my imagination? I can't put my finger on it. Is there a certain way that black girls are taught to sing, or do black womens' voices actually have a slightly different tone to them? Or am I the only one who perceives this difference at all?

I can hear it too. I can usually hear a difference in speaking voices, too, though with the majority of black American women (and men), she'll be speaking in AAV, and you almost never hear that almost-but-not-quite Southern accent on any other ethnic group, so it's something of a cheat.

And yeah, you're right about Aretha. Nobody else has that combination of melodiousness and raw power (cue Rye arriving to explain how some incomprehensible Norwegian troll metal singer who sounds like Leatherface sawing a washing machine full of ball bearings in half is really the best singer ever).

[Dartzap]

Oh, its certainly not racist, its just simple harmonics, really. Alot of Black women when singing have quite deep voices and the lyrics can come alive because of it. There's certainly quite a few R&B singers whose voices are great, even some of the manufactured ones sound pretty good. If they used it for some Rock...then the world implode at the greatness:)

[Spin Echo]

This may sound racist and maybe it is, but it's always seemed to me that there are plenty of times that I hear a female singer on TV, and there's a certain tonality to it that says to me "that's a black chick". And then I turn around and look, and lo and behold, it is a black chick.

Now I'm not saying this in a negative way. I actually like the sound, and my money says that Aretha Franklin was the greatest singer ever. But what is that sound? Is it my imagination? I can't put my finger on it. Is there a certain way that black girls are taught to sing, or do black womens' voices actually have a slightly different tone to them? Or am I the only one who perceives this difference at all?

According to the better half, what you are recognising is not that the singer is black, but they've been trained in the gospel style of singing. It's much like how one can recognise classically trained singers even if they are singing heavy metal (Re: old Nightwish).

[loomer]

To be fair with Old Nightwish, Tarja did pretty much just sing 'classically' a lot of the time, so it's not such a good analogy.

[Spin Echo]

To be fair with Old Nightwish, Tarja did pretty much just sing 'classically' a lot of the time, so it's not such a good analogy.

True, though there were songs she sang normally (They remade Sleeping Sun without the operatic vocals, for example) and you can still pick up the classical influence. If you listen to their new singer on those songs, you can tell the difference in the style of training quite easily.

Obviously one can spot that Tarja is classically trained on say, Wishmaster.

[loomer]

Or Nemo, even. More OT, I can get that as well. I'll hear a song, there's a certain quality to the voice that alerts me. Same with black male singers (generally), though the fact seemingly 95% of them do Rap may explain THAT.

[Rye]

And yeah, you're right about Aretha. Nobody else has that combination of melodiousness and raw power (cue Rye arriving to explain how some incomprehensible Norwegian troll metal singer who sounds like Leatherface sawing a washing machine full of ball bearings in half is really the best singer ever).

Hah, I'd have no idea how to quantify who is the best singer in the world, it depends what you're looking for and how it corresponds to the music. I'd go for different rather than "worse".

The best harsh singer for my money is probably Dave Hunt from Anaal Nathrakh, his scales are fucking mental; the man actually sounds possessed by Zuul with his low gurgles and sounds like he's angry enough to punch through a line of people with his mids, he's got an awesome half-falsetto and clean vocal style too (though I think he cheats with triple-tracking on his clean parts). In fact, I dare you to listen to "Between Shit and Piss We Are Born" or "Virus Bomb" and not feel tingles down your spine.

As for the black thing, I think it's down to blacks often naturally having deeper voices (for whatever reason that is) and a tradition of gospel singing. With a good "diva" you get a good balance right on the edge of holding a note and improvising the human variations, and from what I can tell, Gospel is a good training ground for that.

[Broomstick]

I agree that what you're picking up on is a cultural influence. Many black singers first learn to sing in church, and frequently that is black southern Baptist gospel. (There is also a white southern gospel, but you hear that influence more in country music) But, yeah, it's distinctive and can be quite powerful.

But it's cultural, not physical - a classically or operatically trained black woman's singing voice sounds like other classical or opera musicians.

[Saurencaerthai]

It's usually a case of being raised within a certain culture, as well as both hearing and practicing certain types of music growing up. If you grow up in a black community where gospel, jazz, R&B, and hiphop are more predominant than country or rock music, it's not surprising that they will adopt a style of singing that is idiomatic to those music forms. I do know that within the context of gospel music, the vocal style tends to have it's own flavor. It also wouldn't surprise me if spoken dialect plays into one's vocal development.

[Shroom Man 777]

Hrm, I agree that black singers generally have...I don't know, a distinct voice. But most black singers you hear on the radio and see on TV are American.

I think African-Americans in Britain (:P) sound different and don't carry that...tonality. But that opinion is just based on the few British movies I've seen, namely 28 Days Later (the chick also played Tia Dalma in the Pirates movies, rite?) and Snatch (the black guys had accents, but nothing remotely like their American counterparts). But maybe that's because British people just talk funny in general

[YT300000]

It's just a question of the timbre of the voice, which is heavily affected by racially-specific variations in bone structure and whatnot. It's far from exclusive to each race, though - the first time I heard Jay Kay from Jamiroquai, I thought he was a black woman. Or Steve Winwood, who at 17 sounded like an R&B singer in his mid-30's.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Death growl Norwegian troll metal singers are not the best ever, Liv Kristine, however, is.

[Adrian Laguna]

Death growl Norwegian troll metal singers are not the best ever, Liv Kristine, however, is.

She is Norwegian though.

[Havok]

I don't know exactly what it is, but I can hear it too. What else I can hear is white singers trying to fake it.

There was something interesting, and I can't remember who did it or why, but it was a little experiment where some college kids listened to voices on a video without seeing the people speaking and they were asked whether the people speaking were white or black.

It was like 30 different kids of all races and nationalities and every single one, were able to pick out the black voices. 100% accuracy. It was weird. I'll try to find it and post a link or the story.