LSAT 153, Section 1, RC Passage 4, Blues and Griot

RC Passage 4 Explanation (Comparative)

PASSAGE TEXT: Many commentators have described the blues musician of the United States as an …

Paragraph Summaries

Passage A

1. Commentators often connect U.S. blues musicians to West African griots, but the two were very different socially. Griots preserved community history and cultural identity through song and often held respected roles.
2. Blues musicians created music of personal expression, alienation, and social disconnection. Slavery destroyed much of the communal structure that had made griot music possible, and blues developed in response to that loss.
3. Blues songs often focus on everyday personal struggles, but those struggles point to a larger unspoken history of social loss. Personal themes like heartache and hardship express a broader social reality.

Passage B

1. In 15th-century Wolof society, griots belonged to the lowest of several low-status caste groups. They were part of a strict social hierarchy below the noble class.
2. Griots specialized in public speech and song, even though loud public expression was considered improper for high-status people. They praised their patrons publicly and eloquently.
3. Griots performed inherited roles as historians, storytellers, spokespeople, and guardians of cultural norms. Their songs praised patrons by tying them to family history and community values.

Analysis

Passage B actually contradicts a specific claim in Passage A, and several questions hinge on catching this.

Passage A states that griots “often enjoyed great status in their communities.”

Passage B says they were the LOWEST of 6 low-status subcastes. So low that public loudness was their domain precisely because nobles couldn’t engage in it since it was considered degrading.

This is what question 25 is testing. Don’t let Passage A’s admiring tone toward griots make you assume high status; Passage B tells a more complicated story.

The contradiction also informs question 27. Passage A treats “griot” as a general cultural archetype, a figure of honored communal tradition. Passage B uses the word to refer to a specific hereditary social caste with defined low standing. These are meaningfully different uses of the same term, and they want you to notice that.

The tone in both passages is respectful toward their subjects. Passage A admires what blues music accomplished under conditions of loss. Passage B is more analytical and descriptive, but not critical.