Sterling Brown gives a brief cultural portrait of blues icon Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett, who was known as Ma Rainey. In the poem, Brown provides a powerful exploration of voice and language in African American writing, illustrating the relationship between a musical form and a poetic form. As blues singer, Ma Rainey had a massive following, particularly among African Americans in the South; as a native of Georgia, she “spoke their language.” The first part of the poem looks at Rainey’s touring circuit, which snaked along the Mississippi toward the Gulf of Mexico, and describes the way her fans would have streamed into town to catch her show.