Radical Religious Thought In Black Popular Music

This book is discussing patterns of radical religious thought in popular forms of Black music. The consistent influence of the Five Percent Nation on Rap music as one of the most esoteric groups among the manifold Black Muslim movements has already gained scholarly attention. However, it shares more than a strong pattern of reversed racism with the Bobo Shanti Order, the most rigid branch of the Rastafarian faith, globally popularized by Dancehall-Reggae artists like Sizzla or Capleton. Authentic devotion or calculated marketing? Apart from providing a possible answer to this question, the historical shift of Bobo adherents from shunned extremists to firmly anchored personifications of authenticity in mainstream Rastafarian culture is being emphasized. A multi-layered comparative case study attempts to shed light on the re-contextualization of language as well as expressed dogmatic perceptions and symbolism, attitude towards other religious groups and aspects of ethnic discrimination. Further analysis includes the visibility of artists and their references to practical and moral issues directly derived from two obscure ideologies that managed to conquer airwaves and concert halls.

Este libro está discutiendo patrones de pensamiento religioso radical en formas populares de música negra. La influencia constante de la nación del cinco por ciento en la música rap como uno de los grupos más esotéricos entre los múltiples movimientos musulmanes negros ya ha recibido atención académica. Sin embargo, comparte más que un fuerte patrón de racismo invertido con la Orden Bobo Shanti, la rama más rígida de la fe rastafari, popularizada mundialmente por artistas de Dancehall-Reggae como Sizzla o Capleton. ¿Devoción auténtica o marketing calculado?Además de proporcionar una posible respuesta a esta pregunta, se enfatiza el cambio histórico de los seguidores de Bobo de extremistas rechazados a personificaciones de autenticidad firmemente ancladas en la cultura rastafari dominante. Un estudio de caso comparativo de varias capas intenta arrojar luz sobre la recontextualización del lenguaje, así como las percepciones dogmáticas expresadas y el simbolismo, la actitud hacia otros grupos religiosos y los aspectos de discriminación étnica. Un análisis más detallado incluye la visibilidad de los artistas y sus referencias a cuestiones prácticas y morales directamente derivadas de dos ideologías oscuras que lograron conquistar las ondas aéreas y las salas de conciertos.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music and Social Class is the first extensive analysis of the most important themes and concepts in this field. Encompassing contemporary research in ethnomusicology, sociology, cultural studies, history, and race studies, the volume explores the intersections between music and class, and how the meanings of class are asserted and denied, confused and clarified, through music. With chapters on key genres, traditions, and subcultures, as well as fresh and engaging directions for future scholarship, the volume considers how music has thought about and articulated social class. It consists entirely of original contributions written by internationally renowned scholars, and provides an essential reference point for scholars interested in the relationship between popular music and social class.

Music has the universal power to move individuals, peoples and societies. Music is one of the most important signifiers of cultural change. It is also most significant for youth movements and youth cultures. While Islam has a historically and traditionally rich culture of music, religious controversy on the topic of music is still ongoing. However, young Muslims in today's globalised world seek pop cultural tools such as music, and particularly hip hop music, as way of exploring and expressing their manifold identities, whilst challenging Islamophobia, stigma and racism on the one hand and traditional and religious challenges on the other hand. In this volume, following an international conference with the same title, scholars and young academics from a variety of disciplines seek to explore and highlight the phenomena surrounding the two, somewhat artificially separated, realms of music and religion. The contributions not only look into different genres of music, from Tunisian metal over German female hip hop to Egyptian folk, but take the reader on a journey from continent to countries to cities and rural areas and thus give space and time to a widely neglected area of research: that of Muslim popular culture and young Muslims.

The Sufi tradition remains one of the most mysterious and least understood systems of self-realization. This book demystifies the practice of the sohbet—an ad hoc discourse—as the central instructional tool in the globally influential Naqshbandi-Haqqani Order. It approaches the practice using categories of improvised music to establish a framework for analyzation. Its ritualized formal structure, illustrated via selected talks of Shaykh Nazim Adil al-Haqqani, discloses the underlying—and assumingly primary—function to provoke prolonged states of raised awareness in listeners and condition their sympathetic nervous system. In an extensive discussion based on several years of field research in Cyprus, the book relates this intention to similar practices in other traditional knowledge systems by proposing psychophysical interpretations based on psychology, biochemistry, neuroscience, or quantum physics. It will appeal to scholars and students of Sufism, Islamic studies, and comparative religion, as well as those interested in performance studies and improvised music, interpersonal communication, and education.

In this unique collection, theologians born and formed during the Cold War offer their insights and perspectives on theological relationships with such musical artists and groups as Joy Division, U2, Nick Cave, and John Coltrane. These essays demonstrate that one's personal music preferences can inform and influence professional interests.

The Caribbean is a microcosm of the world. In this very small geographic space one encounters global religions as well as religious practices that are indigenous to the region. This volume provides an overview of Caribbean religions, one that respects the diversity of the religious traditions and the national particularity of the region. It addresses the prominent religious traditions in the Caribbean, with a focus on multiple geographic settings, and examines a cross-section of themes that impact the region broadly and the academic study of Caribbean religion.

"Brilliant, painful, enlightening, tearful, tragic, sad, and funny, this photo-essay book is at its core about healing, and about the social justice work that still needs to be done in the era of hip-hop, Black Lives Matter, and the historic presidency of Barack Obama." -- Kevin Powell, author of The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy's Journey into Manhood "A brilliantly conceived volume. Bryan Shih and Yohuru Williams demonstrate why the Panthers' story-its lessons and failures-even fifty years after its founding remains key to understanding national and international struggles for freedom and justice today." -- Cheryl Finley, professor and director of visual studies, Cornell University Even fifty years after it was founded, the Black Panther Party remains one of the most misunderstood political organizations of the twentieth century. But beyond the labels of "extremist" and "violent" that have marked the party, and beyond charismatic leaders like Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver, were the ordinary men and women who made up the Panther rank and file. In The Black Panthers, photojournalist Bryan Shih and historian Yohuru Williams offer a reappraisal of the party's history and legacy. Through stunning portraits and interviews with surviving Panthers, as well as illuminating essays by leading scholars, The Black Panthers reveals party members' grit and battle scars-and the undying love for the people that kept them going.