Black gospel music grew out of the late 19th and early 20th century folk church and is essentially created in a context of individual and collective spontaneity. As a total manifestation, black gospel can be viewed as a synthesis of West African and Afro-American music, dance, poetry, oratory and drama. An urban contemporary black religious and musical statement of rural folk origins, it is a celebration of the Christian experience of salvation and hope. According to gospel singer and historian Pearl Williams Jones, it is at the same time, "a declaration of black selfhood which is expressed through the very personal medium of music." Though gospel music has exerted a great deal of influence on today's popular music forms and styles, it has been an underground or counterculture body of music for most of its sixty years of existence. As a result, it is among the least understood of the many black cultural expressions. - Leonard Goines