Is God Funky or What?: Black Biblical Culture and Contemporary Popular Music PDF
Preview Is God Funky or What?: Black Biblical Culture and Contemporary Popular Music
111 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 Musiccomplicates 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 I s 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 inter- G o viewsfor songsbymusicians that some millennials might call “ratchet?”Is GodFunky d or What?shares anecdotes probing connections between specific forms of popular F black music and religion. The qualifications of sacred and secular typically depend on u context, lyrics, location, and audience (age, race, religion). Through a woven narrative n of lyrics, godly acknowledgments, recorded and original interviews, biographies, and k recordings from various genres of black music, this book explores how artists have y intertwined views of God, perspectives regarding a higher power, spirituality, and o religion in creating their music. Their creations make up an organic corpus called the r W Artistic Black Canon (ABC). Using the ABC, this book shares and explores its remark- able interpretations and ideas about life, music, spirituality, and religion. Is God Funky h Is God Funky or What?also shares how we can better make use of this music in the classroom, as a t well as better understand how essential it is to the lives of many. ? or What? Theodore W. Burghis a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He B has a BA in music from Hampton University, MA in religious studies from Howard u University, and MA and PhD in Near Eastern studies from the University of Arizona. r g h His first book, Listening to the Artifacts, received the Klaus P. Wachsmann Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology. Black Biblical Culture and www.peterlang.com Contemporary Popular Music Cover image: ©iStock.com/Casarsa P E T E R L A THEODORE W. BURGH N G 111 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 I s 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 inter- G o views for songs by musicians that some millennials might call “ratchet?” Is God Funky d or What? shares anecdotes probing connections between specific forms of popular F black music and religion. The qualifications of sacred and secular typically depend on u context, lyrics, location, and audience (age, race, religion). Through a woven narrative n of lyrics, godly acknowledgments, recorded and original interviews, biographies, and k recordings from various genres of black music, this book explores how artists have y intertwined views of God, perspectives regarding a higher power, spirituality, and o religion in creating their music. Their creations make up an organic corpus called the r W Artistic Black Canon (ABC). Using the ABC, this book shares and explores its remark- able interpretations and ideas about life, music, spirituality, and religion. Is God Funky h Is God Funky or What? also shares how we can better make use of this music in the classroom, as a t well as better understand how essential it is to the lives of many. ? or What? Theodore W. Burgh is a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He B has a BA in music from Hampton University, MA in religious studies from Howard u University, and MA and PhD in Near Eastern studies from the University of Arizona. r g h His first book, Listening to the Artifacts, received the Klaus P. Wachsmann Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology. Black Biblical Culture and www.peterlang.com Contemporary Popular Music Cover image: ©iStock.com/Casarsa P E T E R L A THEODORE W. BURGH N G ADVANCE PRAISE FOR Is God Funky or What? “Anyone who loves black popular music will find this work to be a masterful blend of scholarship, memoir, and nostalgia. Told with warmth and humor, Theodore W. Burgh cites his own musical coming-of-age to argue that secular forms, including jazz, R&B, soul, and hip- hop, have the capacity to trigger experiential outcomes that are decidedly spiritual in nature. He shows how this ostensibly secular music functions as sacred ritual, embellishing and intensifying the kinds of moments that, for many, shape and articulate black identity. Is God Funky or What? is another fine example of black music scholarship boldly situated within the telling of first-person narrative.” —Teresa L. Reed, Professor of Music at the University of Tulsa and author of The Holy Profane: Religion in Black Popular Music and The Jazz Life of Dr. Billy Taylor “Theodore W. Burgh gets down into an idea we’ve all had some kind of intuition about: the notion that the sacred and secular elements of black music are branches from the same tree. On pages of revelations braided together with an easygoing tone, this spiritual man explores what it is about the funk that puts that hump in yo’ rump. With in-depth interviews, on-point analysis, and his own personalized musical experiences across the black musical spectrum, Burgh tells us all how to party on the one with ‘The One’!” —Rickey Vincent, author of Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of The One Is God Funky or What? Rochelle Brock and Cynthia Dillard Executive Editors Vol. 111 The Black Studies and Critical Thinking series is part of the Peter Lang Education list. Every volume is peer reviewed and meets the highest quality standards for content and production. PETER LANG New York Bern Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford Warsaw Theodore W. Burgh Is God Funky or What? Black Biblical Culture and Contemporary Popular Music PETER LANG New York Bern Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford Warsaw Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Burgh, Theodore W., author. Title: Is God funky or what?: black biblical culture and contemporary popular music / Theodore W. Burgh. Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2019. Series: Black studies and critical thinking, vol. 111 | ISSN 1947-5985 Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018037621 | ISBN 978-1-4331-4949-8 (hardback: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4331-4948-1 (paperback: alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4331-6117-9 (ebook pdf) ISBN 978-1-4331-6118-6 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4331-6119-3 (mobi) Subjects: LCSH: Popular music—Religious aspects—Christianity. African Americans—Music—History and criticism. Popular music—United States—History and criticism. African Americans—Religion. Classification: LCC ML3921.8.P67 B87 2019 | DDC 781.64/11208996073—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018037621 DOI 10.3726/b14612 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/. © 2019 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006 www.peterlang.com All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited. I dedicate this book to my parents, Archie and Faye Burgh. Thank you so much for introducing me to music. Although the initial encounter was many years ago, I continue to be inspired by it daily. I truly understand the impor- tance of this powerful art form to my existence and well-being. Dad, I wish you were here so we could read and talk about this work together, but I know your spirit lives in the words. I also dedicate this book to my sister, Felicia. You left us way too soon, but I am truly grateful for the wonderful memories we created. Fly butterfly.
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