“Somebody need you, Lord, come by here. Somebody’s dying, Lord, come by here,” sang H. Wylie in a thick Gullah accent. His song became a popular Black spiritual, but most of us know it as Kumbaya. How did this powerful song become a mere campfire jingle?
Marvin Frey, a white composer, heard Wylie’s song, “Come By Here,” which phonetically sounds like “Come By Yuh” aloud, misinterpreting the lyrics as “Kumbaya.” Frey later hijacked the song and claimed it as his own.
He even made up a fake origin story about a missionary overhearing the song in Angola.
This co-opting is deeper than simply stealing a song. Our people wrote and sang “Come By Here” with their whole chests to call on God during the tormenting days of Jim Crow.
But it was turned into a breezy, feel-good campfire sing-a-long song.
There’s a long history of Black music, language, fashion, and other parts of the culture being stolen, co-opted or miscredited. But we’re the blueprint; they could never do it like us.
Anti-Blackness has stolen so much from us, but it can’t ‘kumbaya’ the culture when we know the truth about our history.