Gospel

Gospel is music with Christian lyrics, most often emphasizing the same New Testament themes as the four books of the new testament known as the gospels. Because the lyrics are so central to the genre, the singers are as well. Most styles of gospel emphasize harmony singing, often interchanged with solos by a lead vocalist. Gospel derives from at least three distinct cultural traditions. A well known variation of gospel is Traditional Black Gospel, which arose out of the traditions of Spiritual and Blues. Concurrently, Southern Gospel evolved from Hymn, originally as small family groups of white evangelical Protestants and later as quartets. Both traditional black gospel and southern gospel emphasize the vocals, which may be either exuberant or mournful with themes of praise or repentance.