The rhyming spiritual is a religious genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

 of music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 found in the Bahamas, and also the song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

s, usually spiritual

Spiritual (music)

Spirituals are religious songs which were created by enslaved African people in America.-Terminology and origin:...

s, and vocal-style within that genre. Rhyming does not refer to rhyme

Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...

 but to verse

Verse (poetry)

A verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza....

, the rhymer, or lead-singer, singing the couplets of the verses against the sung background of the repeated chorus

Refrain

A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...

. Rhyming was most popular during the sponge fishing of the 1930s (the sponges having been killed by a fungus

Fungus

A fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds , as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria...

), and Peter Elliot

Peter Elliot

Peter Elliot is an American writer, editor and media personality, best known for his biography of restaurateur Sirio Maccioni. ‘Sirio: The story of my life and Le Cirque’ and for the development of DINE, the restaurant search engine and lifestyles portal for the global financial news and media...

 is considered the best rhymer.

Generally songs are structured verse-chorus-verse form, where the chorus is the goal of the verse, but in a rhyming spiritual the chorus becomes the accompaniment

Accompaniment

In music, accompaniment is the art of playing along with an instrumental or vocal soloist or ensemble, often known as the lead, in a supporting manner...

 to the verse. The verse progresses over the chorus and eventually coincides, often with the rhymer dropping out for the last few words of the chorus.

Discography

• The Real Bahamas in Music and Song (1996/2003), recorded by Peter K. Siegel and Jody Stecher in 1965. Nonesuch
  Nonesuch Records
  Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...
  
  Explorer Series: H-72013/79725-2.
• The Real Bahamas, Volume II (1978/2003), recorded by Peter K. Siegel and Jody Stecher in 1965. Nonesuch Explorer Series: H-72078/79733-2.