Ok Dude: Zuby’s Truth-Telling New Single
Rap succeeds best as a transgressive genre—hard men saying hard truths against the spirit of the age. Zuby’s new single […]
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Investigating Us – An Interview with Musician Joel Ansett
Joel, thanks for joining us at The Westminster Confession of Funk, hosted by CrossPolitic. So you have a new Kickstarter
Cited: Christian Musician Found in Violation of Diversity Codes
A few weeks ago, I reviewed Andrew Peterson’s beautiful new EP, Resurrection Letters: Prologue. His new full-length album will release
Review: Andrew Peterson’s Resurrection Letters: Prologue
The best music is imaginative in the Chestertonian sense. It does not attempt to create a new world. Rather, it
Psalms With a Southern Accent – My Soul Among Lions
In my first church job the Pastor gave me a bit of advice that stuck. Children learn most of their
Kill You to Call – Nicki Bluhm and The Blues as Connection
The Blues are sad songs. No one wants that. And yet The Blues persist. There is little reason to believe
When the People Cheer – Strip-Clubs and Black Thought’s Poetic Insight
On The Roots newest album ‘. . . and then you shoot your cousin,” one of the most powerful tracks is ‘When the People Cheer.’ Each stanza is written from a different perspective. The third stanza, Black Thought’s stanza, is written from the perspective of a sex addict that has reached both a financial and existential low because he is enslaved to sexual pleasures. He knows that what he is doing is wrong, but he can no longer resist the strip clubs. He turns in to an after-hours joint to blow his last dollar on a lap dance.
Packaging the Tribe: Selling More than Music
Netflix’ new documentary Hip Hop Evolution is a history of the development and rise of Hip Hop and Rap. In one of the interviews, Ice T, a primeval purveyor of Gangster Rap, talks about his early rhymes: “I was just writing about my reality.” He was trying to capture “the laid back vibe of reality.” The people in the neighborhood listened because they recognized their life in his words. According to Ice Cube, another early Gangster Rapper, Ice T wrote rhymes that “were our version of what a day in the life of Los Angeles was like.” They were not trying to create a new genre. They wanted to fetter their daily insanity with verse.