Is God Funky or What?: Black Biblical Culture and Contemporary Popular Music

Description

Black music is a powerful art form. Artists’ creations often go where words cannot. The music is special―sacred. However, it’s still frequently shoehorned into the ambiguous categories of secular and sacred. Is God Funky or What?: Black Biblical Culture and Contemporary Popular Music complicates the traditional categories of sacred and secular by exposing religious rhetoric and contexts of contemporary popular black music and by revealing the religious-based biblical references and spirituality that form the true cultural context from which these genres emerge. The personal beliefs of black music artists often include, if not revolve around, the heavens. How come we are bombarded by the "thank Gods" in televised award shows, liner notes, or interviews for songs by musicians that some millennials might call "ratchet?" Is God Funky or What? shares anecdotes probing connections between specific forms of popular black music and religion. The qualifications of sacred and secular typically depend on context, lyrics, location, and audience (age, race, religion). Through a woven narrative of lyrics, godly acknowledgments, recorded and original interviews, biographies, and recordings from various genres of black music, this book explores how artists have intertwined views of God, perspectives regarding a higher power, spirituality, and religion in creating their music. Their creations make up an organic corpus called the Artistic Black Canon (ABC). Using the ABC, this book shares and explores its remarkable interpretations and ideas about life, music, spirituality, and religion. Is God Funky or What? also shares how we can better make use of this music in the classroom, as well as better understand how essential it is to the lives of many. Cover Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Bues Blues—Sacred, Secular? The Overlooked Relevance of the Blues Supernatural Power in the Blues Jazz What’s So Sacred About Jazz? Jazz Improvisation and the Brain There’s Spirit in the Sacred Improvisation The Church of Saint John Coltrane Exploration of Jazz Perspectives on Sacred and Secular Interviews With Living Jazz Musicians Interview With Jazz Legend Joe Chambers Interview With Vocalist Lori Williams Interview With the Pastor Brian Hamilton Interview With Composer and Arranger Derrick Gardner Interview With Arranger and Composer Jerald Shynett Interview With Jazz Artist Marc Cary Summary R&B/Soul Why R&B/Soul? R&B/Soul Soundtracks and Life Lessons The Cassidy Clark Interviews Jerry Butler Booker T and the MGs Gladys Knight The O’Jays Little Richard Wilson Pickett The Staple Singers and David Ruffin Al Green Eddie Kendricks Patti LaBelle Sly Stone Curtis Mayfield Bill Withers Stevie Wonder The Wonder of Religious Experience Marvin Gaye More R&B/Soul Artists Aretha Franklin The Jackson 5 Michael Jackson Beyoncé Neo-Soul Jill Scott India.Arie Lauryn Hill Erykah Badu D’Angelo Summary Funk Artists, Funk, and the Sacred Rufus and Chaka Khan Larry Graham Prince Chuck Brown—Father of Go-Go Tom Browne Earth, Wind, and Fire Me’Shell Ndegeocello Summary Hip Hop Prophets, Psalmists, and Rappers Influential Rap Artists From the ABC Tupac Shakur Public Enemy NWA Nas Jay Z Kool Moe Dee What About Bitch, Ho, Nigga, and Stuff Like That? Hip Hop, Rap, and a Catastrophic Disaster Dollar Day/Katrina Klap Summary Gospel Rosetta Tharpe John P. Kee Kirk Franklin The Extensions Lyrics Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On? Epilogue Index