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Here’s a nice little video promo piece Christian Piatt put together to promote Banned Questions About the Bible, the first book in the “Banned Questions” series. I contributed to Banned Questions About Jesus, the second book, releasing in June (or July) so it’s exciting to see the first book launching!
I was reading Esquire Magazine the other day, and an interview with Chris Rock sort of had me cracking up. He had some great comments on the Tea Party. The interviewer, Scott Raab, began:
“Like many nice Caucasians, I cried the night Barack Obama was elected,” said Raab. “It was one of the high points in American history. And all that’s happened since the election is just a shit storm of hatred. You want to weigh in on that?”
Rock responded:
“I actually like it, in the sense that—you got kids? Kids always act up the most before they go to sleep. And when I see the Tea Party and all this stuff, it actually feels like racism’s almost over. Because this is the last—this is the act up before the sleep. They’re going crazy. They’re insane. You want to get rid of them—and the next thing you know, they’re fucking knocked out. And that’s what’s going on in the country right now.”
Prescient? Maybe, but funny as hell.
Forgive me, fellow Synchrobloggers, friends, and blog readers, I’m feeling a little feisty as I approach this month’s Synchroblog project:
This month’s synchroblog’s theme is inspired by the season of Epiphany which begins on January 6 and ends the day before Ash Wednesday. The word “epiphany” is rich in meaning. Epiphany is derived from the Greek epiphaneia and means manifestation, shining forth, revelation or appearance. In a religious context, the term describes the appearance of an invisible divine being…
In a specifically Christian context, epiphany is a reference to the Theophany or manifestation of God in Jesus Christ.
But I’ve been arguing all week with several Christians who were not only hell bent on demonizing Islam for purposes I could not get them to admit (I assume evangelistic — the worse THEY look, the better WE look? Apparently?) but who also refused to admit Christianity was capable of manifesting anything evil, false, untrue… even going so far as to state that anyone who would teach or practice “unchristian things” was “not a true Christian.” For example: the prosperity pastors in Africa pouring acid down children’s throats for money, to “eradicate witchcraft,” weren’t really Christians.
How convenient. The pedophile priests were probably Hindu, but I digress…
I’ll be blogging a lot more about this in the coming weeks because I feel a huge desire to repent for all of the sins I’ve committed as a Christian, and for all of the sins my faith-of-origin has committed through the last two thousand years in the name of Christ (overcompensation tends to be in my nature). Also because I have a lot of built-up schtick I need to utilize.
Meanwhile, I wanted to spend a little time in this exploration of Epiphany, thinking about the Epiphany of God outside the boundaries of Christendom and Christian jargon.
I’m always first reminded of a friend of mine who is an agnostic. He’s kind, good-natured, and infinitely fair-minded. I won’t name him since he drops in on this blog from time to time and I don’t want to embarrass him. The point is, I wish Christians broadly behaved the way he does. The church would be a gentler, humbler, warmer, more loving, compassionate place. The church would look like Jesus, because that friend of mine — that agnostic, who doesn’t worry about heaven or hell, theology or church — behaves more like Jesus than most Christians I know. He’s an epiphany without a label or a sinner’s prayer.
Second, I’m reminded of an article a friend sent me a week ago: Muslims serve Christmas Eve dinner to 300. He wrote wryly: “those damn Muslims, doing what Jesus told US to do. Terrorists.” The article describes how a local Muslim group in Montreal decided to reach out to their local community by donating, and serving food at the Christmas Eve dinner at a mission in town. As an aside, the fundamentalist man I was arguing with today (very angry) had said, “Muslims willbabble ‘Allah Akbar’ while cutting your throat!” And ranted on about how superior Christian morality is. But I see Christ wherever the Fruits of the Spirit are manifested in the world. I don’t need a fish on the bumper for permission to approve. And I’ve certainly had my throat cut by more than one Christian in my life, yelling “Praise Jesus”… well, we Christians stab in the back more typically don’t we? Ah, but I’m getting off track again. You’ll have to forgive me. These are posts to come and I’m just too darned excited!
In my view, the service of that Islamic group on Christmas Eve in Montreal is an epiphany.
Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” He didn’t give a lot of stipulations. And he didn’t ask for a code word.
Finally, as I’ve written about the Tao Te Ching and Rumi many times before, my wife bought me The Gift by Sufi master poet Hafiz for Christmas this year. The beauty of the words, and the universality of the truth I find here, is an epiphany:
I hope you’ll read all of the other participants in this month’s Synchroblog!
This morning we went to a Congregational United Church of Christ. I really liked it (maybe enough to give up on my pursuit of becoming an Episcopalian). We recited this Prayer of Confession in unison:
Eternal God, whose image lies in the hearts of all people, we live among peoples whose ways are different from ours, whose faiths are foreign to us, whose tongues are unintelligible to us. Universal God, help us to remember that you love all people with your great love, that all religion is an attempt to respond to you, that we are brothers and sisters with all humanity. Revealing God, help us to recognize you in the convictions of truth, in the expressions of beauty, in the actions of love which surrounds us. All this we pray in the name of Jesus Christ who is a stranger to no one land more than to another, and who is present to every land no less than another. Amen.
Beautiful, eh?
And…
Thought I’d share some of these poems with you. Hope you’ll enjoy. There are more below, after the jump…
I've decided not to complete an entire review of every song on Kanye West's new album. First, I've already set up a bad precedent. There are other albums I care more about, that I think demonstrate more artistic talent, or have more lasting appeal. The Fugees The Score is one of those albums. So are I Say, I Say, I Say by Erasure, Release the Stars from Rufus Wainwright, Depeche Mode's Exciter, and 2Pac Shakur's All Eyez On Me (all of these come from the last two decades, demonstrating my own limitations in taste and perspective).
When people ask me about hip hop, they usually want to know, "What's it about? What's the rapper saying? What do the words mean?" And I can often point to some meaningful lines here and there. For example...
I don't care what your musical taste is. You will appreciate this:
Yo, there's a war in the mind, over territory
For the dominion
Who would dominate the opinion
Skisms and isms, keepin' us in forms of religion
Conformin' our vision
To the world church's decision
Trapped in a section
Submitted to committee election
Moral infection
Epedemic lies and deception
Insurrection
Of the highest possible order
Destortin' our tape recorders
From hearin' like underwater
Beyond the borders
Fond of sin and disorder
Bound by the strategy
Of systematic depravity
Heavy as gravity
Head first in the cavity
Without a bottom
A fate worse than Sodom
What's got him drunk off the spirits?
Truth comes, we can't hear it
When you've been, programmed to fear it
I had a vision
I was fallin' in indescision
Apallin', callin' religion
Some program on television
How can dominant wisdom
Be recognizing the system
Of Anti-Christs, the majority rules,
Intelligent fools
PhD's in illusion
Masters of mass confusion
Bachelors in past illusion
Now who you choosin'?
The head or the tail?
The bloodshed of the male?
More confidence in the tale?
Conferences in Yale
Discussin' documents of Baal
Causin' people to fail
Keepin' a third in jail
His word is nailed
Everything to the tree
Severing all of me from all that I used to be.
But it is rare for rap lyrics to remain so consistently poignant and targeted. Even Lauryn Hill herself admits in another song, "so I add a motherfucker so you ignorant n*ggas hear me!"
So-called "socially conscious" rappers like Nas, Common and Talib Kweli decry social injustice, misogyny and abuse of women, violence, and materialism in one verse, but are prone to turn around in even the same track and commit identical sins. No rapper is more guilty of this than Kanye West in "Diamonds of Sierra Leone." He was widely lauded several years ago for bringing worldwide attention to the blood diamond trade, in the first verse of the song: "I thought my Jesus-piece was so harmless, till I seen a picture of a shorty armless, and here's the conflict..." But the second verse undermines any positive affect:
People askin'me is I'ma give my chain back?
That'll be the same day I give the game back.
Translation: "I'm keeping my Jesus-piece, armless children or not." Nice, Kanye.
But my argument, cruel, heartless and insensitive as it may sound, is not that these questions are unimportant, but that they are not central to what hip hop is musically -- genetically. What's often misunderstood in the craft of rap, as much as in the enjoyment of rap, is that the words themselves function as lyrical instruments. Rappers use rhyme, alliteration, dissonance, repetition and tempo to build sounds, not just to tell stories. Too often, listeners try to find meaning in the words, and miss the music ("forest for the trees..."). It's like trying to identify the color palette in a painting without noticing the actual painting.
The other consistent feature of rap music, from its beginning, is its own self-celebration: rappers celebrate rap. They celebrate their own craft and artistry. They point to the thing they are doing. They differentiate themselves from others. They self-aggrandize, posture, and brag... but "celebration" is the most generous way of describing it. It's an aggressive medium, to be sure sure, but it's one that demands to be noticed. It has a cultural chip on its shoulder - expression of the oppressed.
When art conveys something offensive, I think we should be brave enough and honest enough to name that and speak up. But it's important to recognize what is actually being said:
When Kanye West raps about his sexual exploits with easy women, we need to be specific about what needs critique. He would be wrong to use his power, fame and platform to manipulate and exploit his female fans. He is certainly wrong for speaking about them so disrespectfully. He is also wrong for allowing his celebrity-based sexual experiences to impact his respect for, and treatment of women in general. Is he a bad person for sleeping with lots of fans? As a Christian I say he's practicing destructive, unhealthy behavior, but that's not behavior I find worth decrying an artist for. Should we protest him rapping about the fact that he has lots of sex? Not necessarily. While it's not classy, I'm not sure that's inherently oppressive.
We need to be clear about what we're protesting.
When Andres Serrano took a photo of a crucifix in a jar of his urine ("Piss Christ") he obviously stirred the pot and earned all sorts of international Christian hatred. But what exactly was he doing? Serrano himself was coy about his intentions, but a nun came forward in the midst of the controversy in the 1990s to argue that it was not blasphemy, but a poignant commentary on what we (contemporary society and religion) have done to Christ. So what's left to protest there, unless one thinks society has been respectful and pious toward the image and character of Christ?
I'm not naive, but I believe that art tells us something. Sometimes it tells us a specific story. Sometimes it is very intangible -- more a story about us, and our own responses than about the piece itself (plenty of artists will tell you that their art "isn't about anything" and that's legitimate, but impact is unavoidable). It's probably not healthy to dwell on negative, caustic, hostile expressions of art. I don't spend as much time listening to the angry music I once listened to, but it still plays an important role in shaping my worldview. As disappointing as Kanye West's misogyny is, he provides a great reminder -- cautionary for us all -- of how far we have to go before we live in an equalized society.
2Pac Shakur once said, "They didn’t even want to stop the Vietnam War until people saw the pictures of how horrible it really was. So I said to myself, that’s what I’m gonna do with my lyrics: I’m going to paint a picture of the horrible aspects of life, and maybe then they will try to stop it."
Pop art today is showing us a lot of reality that needs to be stopped. Somehow, in a beautiful, dark, twisted, ironic way, the most powerful art is telling us those hard stories in ways that are perversely beautiful and disturbingly compelling.
Gorgeous, track two of the album, is less ostentatious than Dark Fantasy. Moody and brooding, but somewhat underwhelming, it features cameos from KiD CuDi and Raekwon. I’m livin’ in the 21st century No one man should have all that power
On my first listen, I was certain it was Nas (rather than Raekwon) spitting the last verse. It’s a gentle, almost-tired whisper the sounds wise, not arrogant:
nigga hat game was special
it matched every black pair of Nikes
throwing dice for decimals
the older head, bolder head, would train a soldier head
make sure he right in the field, not a soldier dead
got made code red
break up the black skunk
the black dutch, back of the old shed
if you can't live, you dying
you give or buy in
keep it real or keep it moving, keep grinding
keep shining, to every young man, this is a plan
In his debut album, Nas was often called "The Second Coming of Raekwon," but that acclaim (and it was acclaim) died off when Nas' subsequent 90s albums demonstrated a bling-mediocrity few would have predicted from his promisings start. Thankfully, he pulled his career back from the brink, and his last six albums have been consistently strong. After years of tirelessly listening to Nas, I hadn't realized how much his style truly emulated Raekwon, so I was excited to hear West provide space on this track, and Raekwon delivers, redeeming one of the drabber songs on the album.
Track three is Power, one of the most pure, "hip hop" songs in the mix, and yet there is nothing simplistic or one-dimensional about it. It's grand and aggressive, starting with a chant that builds and builds, layer upon layer, tribal, punk, techno, alt rock, rap... I'm not sure what it is that makes a film "epic." Lawrence of Arabia is epic. Braveheart is epic. So is Star Wars. All three have sweeping panoramic shots, lush, varied landscapes, rich textures, high drama, a huge number of actors in front of the camera. And yet there are plenty of films with all these components that are decidedly not epic. The same can be said of music, though the components are slightly different. Power is an epic. It's lyrics aren't particularly gripping, but they serve as instruments carrying the message, not the message itself. The message is the whole.
Doin’ something mean to it
Do it better than anybody you ever seen do it
Screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it
I guess every superhero need his theme music
The clock’s tickin’, I just count the hours
Stop trippin’, I’m trippin’ off the power
(21st century schizoid man)
It’s been repealed!
(in case you were living under a rock)
Okay, confession: I was all Christmas-hyped over the weekend, watching Chevy Chase and Charlie Brown, and Jack Black (a la The Holiday), so I actually WAS under a rock. I didn’t even realize until I hit CNN Monday morning.
This is a huge step toward social equality and I couldn’t be more pleased that this wretched Senate managed to actually get something done!
It’s pretty phenomenal where West has come artistically in the last 5 years; perhaps, directly related to how fall he seems to fall, personally.
There’s a track at the end of the album, featuring spoken word by American poet and activist Gil Scott-Heron:
Us living as we do upside down.
And the new word to have is revolution.
People don’t even want to hear the preacher spill or spiel because God’s whole card has been thoroughly piqued.
And America is now blood and tears instead of milk and honey.
The youngsters who were programmed to continue fucking up
woke up one night digging Paul Revere and Nat Turner as the good guys.
America stripped for bed and we had not all yet closed our eyes.
The signs of Truth were tattooed across our open ended vagina.
We learned to our amazement untold tale of scandal.
Two long centuries buried in the musty vault,
hosed down daily with a gagging perfume.
America was a bastard the illegitimate daughter of the mother country
whose legs were then spread around the world and a rapist known as freedom,
FREE DOOM.
Democracy, liberty, and justice were revolutionary code names
that preceded the bubbling
bubbling
bubbling
bubbling
bubbling in the mother country’s crotch
What does Webster say about soul?
All I want is a good home and a wife
And a children and some food to feed them every night.
After all is said and done build a new route to China if they’ll have you.
Who will survive in America?
Who will survive in America?
Who will survive in America?
Who will survive in America?
But Scott-Heron’s lyrics are edited in Kanye’s cut. These are the full verses:
Who will survive in America?
The time is in the street you know. Us living as we do upside down. And the new word to have is revolution. People don’t even want to hear the preacher spill or spiel because God’s whole card has been thoroughly piqued. And America is now blood and tears instead of milk and honey. The youngsters who were programmed to continue fucking up woke up one night digging Paul Revere and Nat Turner as the good guys. America stripped for bed and we had not all yet closed our eyes. The signs of Truth were tattooed across our open ended vagina. We learned to our amazement untold tale of scandal. Two long centuries buried in the musty vault, hosed down daily with a gagging perfume. America was a bastard the illegitimate daughter of the mother country whose legs were then spread around the world and a rapist known as freedom, free doom. Democracy, liberty, and justice were revolutionary code names that preceded the bubbling bubbling bubbling bubbling bubbling in the mother country’s crotch and behold a baby girl was born, nurtured by slave holders and whitey racists it grew and grew and grew screwing indiscriminately like mother like daughter everything unplagued by her madame mother. The present mocks us, good Black people with keen memories set fire to the bastards who ask us in a whisper to melt and integrate. Young, very young, teeny bopping revolt on weekend young dig by proxy what a mental ass kicking they receive through institutionalized everything and vomit up slogans to stay out of Vietnam. They seek to hide their relationship with the world’s prostitute alienating themselves from everything except dirt and money with long hair, grime, and dope to camo-hide the things that cannot be hidden. They become runaway children to walk the streets downtown with everyday Black people sitting on the curb crying because we know that they will go back home with a clear conscience and a college degree. The irony of it all, of course, is when a pale face SDS motherfucker dares look hurt when I tell him to go find his own revolution. He wonders why I tell him that America’s revolution will not be the melting pot but the toilet bowl. He is fighting for legalized smoke, or lower voting age, less lip from his generation gap and fucking in the street. Where is my parallel to that? All I want is a good home and a wife and a children and some food to feed them every night. Back goes pale face to basics. Does Little Orphan Annie have a natural? Do Sluggos kings make him a refugee from Mandingo? What does Webster say about soul? I say you silly chipe motherfucker, your great grandfather tied a ball and chain to my balls and bounced me through a cotton field while I lived in an unflushable toilet bowl and now you want me to help you overthrow what? The only Truth that can be delivered to a four year revolutionary with a whole card i.e. skin is this: fuck up what you can in the name of Piggy Wallace, Dickless Nixon, and Spiro Agnew. Leave brother Cleaver and Brother Malcolm alone please. After all is said and done build a new route to China if they’ll have you.
Who will survive in America?
Who will survive in America?
Who will survive in America?
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