Gospel music is a genre of Christian sacred song that developed within African American Protestant church life, characterized by passionate, often improvisatory vocal delivery, call-and-response between a lead singer and choir or congregation, and a strong rhythmic drive drawing on blues, jazz and other African American musical idioms alongside its explicitly religious lyrical content centered on personal faith, testimony and praise.
Unlike hymnody built around fixed, uniformly performed melodies, gospel performance strongly emphasizes individual vocal expression, with singers expected to ornament, bend and personalize a song's melody in the moment as an expression of genuine spiritual feeling rather than simply reproducing a written score, a performance practice closely tied to the broader African American sacred and secular musical tradition it grew out of. Congregational participation, including clapping, vocal response and physical movement, is typically an expected and integral part of gospel performance in its home worship context rather than passive listening, reflecting a broader understanding within many African American church traditions of music as a communal, embodied act of worship. Gospel choirs, soloists and quartets became central institutions within many African American congregations over the twentieth century, and the genre's influence extended far beyond the church, shaping soul, rhythm and blues, and popular music more broadly.