...Andrew M. Greeley Copyright © 1992 by Duke University Press 1992 Like a Catholic: Madonna's Challenge to Her Church Andrew M. Greeley I am not sure whether a discussion of the serious implications of the Madonna rock music video "Like a Prayer" is possible in the contemporary climate...

..., Nathaniel Townsley, John Ford , Thermon Ruth, C lifton Antley. Courtesy of Doug Seroff and Thermon Ruth . Thermon Ruth and the Selah Jubilee Singers 33 Ruth: Well, like you said, it was either a church or a_community group or just guys that got together because they liked singing. Maybe heard the Selahs...

.... But liberation theologies insist on analyzing religious culture in relation to specific sociopolitical contexts; they promote ideas and practices to transform specific injustices. Thus, the meaning and importance of any given text, like a sermon or song, should not be sought in the abstract but in relation...

... of the historical experience of blacks in American society and therefore can be read as history. More recently, a new black musical form called "rap" or "hip-hop" has evolved from the contemporary urban descendants of southern blacks of the Great Migration. Like its black musical precursors, rap also describes...

... to pump, while he hummed "Please don' drive me away, You may need me some day." He pumped with the measured movements of a tired woman washing clothes, keeping time with his humming-and it gave him a sense of exhilaration-made him feel like he was "shouting!' As he slowly moved his entire body up and down...

... 'em as I please, I'm the only one like the way I'm singin' 'em, I'll swear to goodness ain't no one else to please. James H. Cone is a professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York City. From The Spirituals and the Blues (Maryknoll, N .Y.: Orbis Press, 1991); reprinted with the permission...

... clubs very much, and not at all when they are irreverently sung or played in jive rhythms for the amusement of cabaret revellers. I do not think religious songs with their deep meanings for many people are a proper part of night club entertainment where folks are out for fun and drinking. Nor do I like...

... Copyright © 1992 by Duke University Press 1992 A Composer's Viewpoint I would like to preface my remarks by stating what will soon be an obvious fact to all of you, namely that I am a composer, and not an orator. You may well decide that composers such as I ought to devote themselves...

... that have survived in the modem genre of rap: Master rappers of today are keeping alive and visible the tradition of Afro-American artistry in communication, like all those unnamed Blacks who toasted Brer Rabbit, Stagolee, or some other fictitious character; like the authors and lyrics who have praised...

...J. Michael Jarrett Copyright © 1992 by Duke University Press 1992 On Jazzology: A Rapsody f. Michael Jarrett JJre Numismatic Discourse of Jazz Jazz is not a "form" like, let us say, the waltz or the fugue, that leaves the composer's imagination free within the form; it is a bundle of tricks...

...); "illin'" (to mess up). And, like most black 1. For a more comprehensive treatment of rap, see my "The Culture of Hip-Hop Zeta Magazine 2, no. 6 (June 1989), 44-50. This article originally appeared in Christianity and Crisis, March 16, 1987, and is reprinted with permission. Black Sacred Music 3:2, Fall...

... virtuosity, bebop jazz musicians expressed the heightened tensions, frustrated aspirations, and repressed emotions of an aggressive yet apprehensive Afro-America. The bebop musicians, like Thomas Pynchon in our time, shunned publicity and eschewed visibility. Their radical nonconformist stance-often...

... of the aforementioned artists (like Madonna, he is very much on the minds of the American public at present). The opening paragraphs of the news release read: People who are familiar with some of the lyrics of songs by rock star Prince or have watched his sexually explicit gyrating on stage might be surprised to hear...

... serious studies; and the vogue has even assisted the nascent drama. Those who like the primitive have been satisfied; at the same time there has been a challenge to the conscious artist. In the face of such acceptance and acclaim it might seem strange that any one should raise a question. Yet some things...

... and Guy Johnson in their 1926 Negro Workaday Songs, recorded two blues that thematized the Adamic myth. One blamed "the woman" for causing "po' Adam's fall," and the other blamed "Mudder Eve" for "Daddy Adam's fall."5 James Odem's "Patience Like Job," cowritten by Sunnyland Slim, similarly thematized...

... like them, are more than mere songs; they are messages which proclaim the gospel. They tell "the story They preach. They are proclamational, and being so they are inseparable from the Kerygmatic ministry of the black church. In light of this, it is not difficult to understand why the homiletical...

... floods have caused their community's meager dwellings they might easily be moved to croon the blues like Texas blueswoman Sippie Wallace: The water is rising people fleeing for the hills Lord the water will obey if you just say "be still." ("The Flood Blues") But in the light of the existence...

... wants to bless Israel. You see, when Isaiah offers us this word in chapter 54, he is giving a prophecy of what life will be like on the other side of the Babylonian captivity. He has already told the people that they will be carried away into exile. He has told them that because of the sin of the nation...

... then, the outbursts of disapproval which greeted Dvofak's announcement that a nationalistic American symphony could be founded upon Negro song. There was a resentment that orchestral settings of "Swanee River," "My Old Kentucky Home," "O Suzannah," or the like should become musical symbols of American life. J22 1"e R...

..., p. 25. This includes the music of white folk singers like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter Seeger, and Peter, Paul and Mary. 2 The Journal of Black Sacred Music need blacks had to express the complexity of complaints and rebuttals regarding their repression .2 For example, additional verses to "We Shall...