Robert Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) was born in Canada before moving to the Unites States at the age of 11. He began studying piano at an early age and went on to be the first black American to graduate from Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Throughout his career he worked as a composer, organist, pianist, choral director and music professor; he received many awards for his music and writing and spent a period at the Fontainebleau School of Music south of Paris where he studied with Nadia Boulanger. Dett became well known for incorporating tunes and and elements of African American folk songs and spirituals into classical music.

Listen to the Lambs is scored for mixed unaccompanied chorus with solo soprano part and was originally published by G. Schirmer in 1914. It became one of his most famous choral works and was featured in The Oxford Book of Spirituals and Choral Music: A Norton Historical Anthology. There are modern recordings of the anthem performed by chamber choirs but Dett himself conducted a 900-voice performance of the work at Hampton University, Virginia where he was the director of the music department between 1928 and 1932.