2022 : a year of musical change
One more retrospect before we get back to other musings on life, theology, and books. Today I'm going to detour to talk about music. We live in a curious age, one in which silence is increasingly rarer. Nowhen in history has it been more possible to listen to music in abundance, of your choice, as much of the time.
This year, amidst everything else, I actually and actively changed what kinds of music I listen to. From my early 20s onwards I have listened to various forms of punk, and some rock. A lot of fast, hard, aggressive music. That's not the only thing in my listening stable, but it's a lot of it. But it’s not what I needed this year past.
This year, as I listened to Where Ya From? (a podcast I've mentioned before) a lot of their interviews are with Black Christian hip hop artists, so I started listening to them. I once more blame my friend Ryan, who pointed me to Tedashii, and from there it snowballed. So here I am going to share about four artists I personally discovered in 2022 - three hip-hip, and one decidedly not (if hip-hop does not at all interest you, skip down to the last artist, Poor Bishop Hooper)
Tedashii
Tedashii is from an African-American and Samoan background, raised in Texas. His own story of coming to faith, and reconnecting with his father, is fascinating and moving , as well as the loss of his one-year old son in 2013.
Some favourites:
Home
Nothing I can't Do
Lecrae
Lecrae is probably one of, if not the, most famous Christian hip hop artists. He has some real classics. He also suffered the ire of the evangelical right when he dared to speak about Race, and it's clear that that took his toll on him. He released a new album this year, Church Clothes 4, part of a series
Some of my favourites:
Still in America
Spread the Opps
Deconstruction
I'll Find You
Cry for You
Beautiful Eulogy
Is a group that I discovered very late in 2022, and I don't think they have been active for a few years. They are an 'experimental hip-hop group' from Portland, Oregon. I think they combine theological acumen, lyrical complexity, and musical innovation. Here's a couple of their songs:
Release me from this Snare
Omnipotent
Poor Bishop Hooper
It's really hard to find contemporary musical ways to enter into the psalms as songs. The traditions of western plainsong, Byzantine chant, Gaelic psalm-singing, etc.. are mostly inaccessible for the average person. Singing metrical psalms in English is... lack-lustre, I would say. I discovered very late in the year Poor Bishop Hooper and the every psalm project. PBH is Jesse and Leah Roberts, a couple from Kansas. Their band name comes from Bishop Hooper, anglican bishop, reformer, and martyr in 1555.
Anyway, back to these psalms. The Every Psalm project was a recording of a psalm every week, over three years, which resulted in this amazing collectiong of psalm songs. They are simple, moving, powerful renditions of the psalms that are listenable, singable, faithful, and emotive without being emotional. Here's a few of them:
Psalm 15
Psalm 23
Psalm 13
Psalm 2