Nigerian music artiste, Seyi Shay, has claimed that many traditional hymns were written by slave owners who forced enslaved people to sing them while being subjected to torture.
Seyi disclosed this earlier this week in a post on her Instagram story, revealing why she stopped attending a church for choosing old hymns over new songs.
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According to her, the decision to leave the church was never about doctrine or conflict.
According to Seyi Shay, enslaved people were made to sing those hymns written by slave owners while being subjected to torture.
In her words, “I stopped going to that church. PERIODT”.
“I don’t know how or why you would feel blessed and happy by singing some of the songs that slave owners wrote and forced them to sing and pass down through generations while beating and torturing your ancestors… makes no sense.”
Explaining, Seyi recalled how one of the church leaders had told members to stop singing modern songs and only sing hymns and songs based on scripture.
“One leader like dat at my former church said something like,’ we need to stop singing all these new age gospel songs in praise and worship and go back to singing hymns and only songs that are direct scripture…,” she added.
In a follow-up post, the singer clarified that not all hymns have this problematic history, but many do. “Not ALL hymns were written by slave owners ooo! But a lot of them were. In some cases you’re better off making up your own praise and worship songs/hymns (based on scripture if you prefer),” she said.
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