Alejandro Nava Besides resurrecting ancient poetic traditions of the bard or griot, and adopting the creative vernacular of black folklore, radio DJs, church preachers, street corner poets, and Jamaican artists, hip hop strikes a more ominous and apocalyptic tone.
Tag Archives: music
Operation Mindcrimes: Heavy Metal Prophecy or Sign of the Times?
David Feltmate We should not be looking at this moment as somehow unique. In fact, it contains far too many similarities with past eras.
Religion in Hip-Hop, Part 1: Exploring the Religious History of Kendrick Lamar
L. Benjamin Rolsky Lamar’s words may indeed be best understood through a method that foregrounds uses or functionality over content, but to read these words is to build an archive for millennial religiosity and spirituality in the twenty-first century through a nearly ubiquitous art form and commercial industry—hip-hop.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Lazarus
Jill Marshall In the Gospel and Bowie’s interpretation of it, the act of coming back from the dead is dramatic and controversial.
The Ruling Class: Jeff Tweedy Singing about Jesus
Jeff Tweedy Yeah he’s back jack, smokin’ crack, find him if you wanna get found…
Bonnaroo Spirituality and Collective Effervescence
Scott Muir Bonnaroovians overwhelmingly endorse the notion that the festival is a sacred collective experience.
On Bonnaroo’s 15th: The Sacred and the Psychedelic Tradition
Scott Muir While 65% of the 655 individuals I surveyed at 10 such festivals report that they rarely or never “attend religious or spiritual services/gatherings,” participants overwhelmingly affirm the notion that these festivals are themselves sacred social events.
Religion Around Michael Bolton: A Modest Proposal
Mark Hulsether To the Editors of the Religion Around Series: It has come to my attention that your press has initiated a series of short books about how religious or quasi-religious themes relate “around” creative artists. But it seems that, in practice, most such “prominence” could be translated into an idiom of highbrow tastemakers valorizing artists who enjoy universal acclaim—or even a language of reproducing elite hegemonic cultural capital. Herewith, I submit a modest proposal for a book more attuned to making the series pluralistic and representative of the everyday lived tastes of subaltern listeners: the manifold religious dimensions of Michael Bolton.
Under-the-Radar Religion for Nones: Björk’s ‘Vulnicura’
Mark Hulsether If there is any part of our culture where the (typically noxious) idea of trickle-down influence actually makes sense, Björk is a good place to look. She ranks amid an extremely select handful of musician’s musicians whose creative innovations especially matter. This year her superb record, Vulnicura, flew less under the popular radar than some of her earlier work, since it was coordinated with an exhibit showcasing her fashion innovations at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and features in the New Yorker and New York Times Magazine.