Unreflective Joy: A Little Dab'll Do Ya

Frequent readers of this blog know that I strongly disapprove of the use of gospel music in advertising. (New readers can catch up here, here and here.)

A quick review: I share the sentiments Dr. Barbara Holmes of Memphis Theological Seminary expresses in her book Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church:

"Exuberance and social consciousness are only the most obvious contributions that the black church has to offer a history of human spiritual engagement. . .[W]hen these charismatic practices are deemed to be the quintessential expression of black worship, our view of the black church is reduced to caricature.

"The myth of unreflective joy is reinforced by the use of black worship to sell commerical products. . . .My discomfort with commercialized uses of Africana worship traditions is exacerbated by the implicit respect given to other ethnic traditions. Although I am aware that advertisers have free reign in a consumer-driven culture and that very little is sacrosanct, I also note that I have never seen a Muslim cleric touting the detergent that keeps his robes fresh, orthodox cantors singing antacid ads, or an American Indian emerging from a sweat lodge with a name-brand deodorant in his hand.

" . . . Moses Berry shares his grandmother Dorothy's caution about carelessly offering precious communal wisdom to the wider world:

'If you share something sacred with people who won't respect it, they will try to reduce it to something that they can understand, and miss the sacredness. Therefore . . .don't let them know about your church music because they'll turn it into dance music or look at it like "folk music," and miss the point that it's the music of suffering people that lifted them from earth to heaven. It's not merely an art form.'"

Like Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer, I think these uses of gospel music are part of the downside of gospel's increased mainstream popularity. Still, I want to believe that sacred music can be shared with those who will treat it and its religious roots respectfully.

But this hasn't been the best week for that.

First, I saw an oddly sensual commercial for Lipton White Tea that features the spiritual "This Little Light of Mine." As far as I can tell, it doesn't have a whole lot to do with spirituals. Or with tea, for that matter.

Then, I discovered Nivea's new campaign for their Goodbye Cellulite product. The ad (and website, which you can see here) features a "Goodbye Cellulite Choir."

From the product description:

"Praise be for NIVEA body Goodbye Cellulite. Containing L-Carnitine, this smooth, non-greasy formula moisturises and visibly smoothes dimpled skin. . . .Smooth NIVEA body Goodbye Cellulite on problem areas such as thighs, buttocks and stomach once or twice a day and you could be enjoying visible results in just 4 weeks.

And that is something to sing about!"

(No, it's not. Consider yourself warned about the content of the video.)

This is beyond annoying. It's scandalous. Whether or not you take a look at the campaign website, it's easy to see why some people in the UK's gospel community have called the campaign "racist and blasphemous." From the "shouting music" you hear upon clicking to the dancing, raunchy lyrics (shades of Saartjie Baartman/"Hottentot Venus," anyone?), and stereotypes you can read about in the "Meet the Band" section, it's one ugly misrepresentation of black music, black worship, and black Christians, specifically black Christian women. (There's not much I can say about the Goodbye Cellulite Hip-Hop Band video, because it actually resembles some of the mainstream hip-hop videos I've seen.)

According to news reports, the ad agency approached Ken Burton of the London Adventist Chorale to assemble a choir for the ad campaign, and he refused. "The context of having black people walking around slapping their hind thighs in a church whilst people shout Hallelujah (which means I give highest praise to God) is highly blasphemous,” he told the online magazine United By One. (It's worth noting that Burton doesn't object to the use of gospel music in ads, but is concerned that the context be respectful.)

The Voice reports that Beiersdorf UK LTD (which manufactures Nivea products) released a statement saying “The campaign was not intended to show disrespect to either the genre or faith of gospel music, or to any part of African culture but rather a celebration of gospel music and its joyful attitude.” A representative of Staniforth, the PR agency that worked on the campaign, added that " . . .the use of gospel music was intended to create a fun and joyful atmosphere."

A particularly flagrant perpetuation of the myth of unreflective joy. Apparently, it didn't occur to anyone in those organizations that gospel has religious and cultural significance--that it's more than fun music to be appropriated for any commercial purpose.

Finally, I'm particularly troubled by the (mostly black) crowd of actors and actresses who sang for the ad and filmed the scene. Beiersdorf and Staniforth couldn't have made this mess without their complicity. Where's their sense that the living artifacts of African(-American) culture are not to be shared recklessly?

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In the next day or two, I'll be writing a polite letter of protest to Beiersdorf UK LTD, submitting a copy to the Nivea Products website, and contacting Staniforth, the PR firm that worked with Nivea on the campaign.

Video Pick: Sing, Sister, Sing!

This last week, I've been enjoying Gayle F. Wald's Shout, Sister, Shout! The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe. (Look for a review here in the next week or two.)

I've been interested in Tharpe's life for a few years now, and I'm taking my usual approach to learning about a musician/artist: immersion (a Baptist thing, maybe?). Friends of mine recall the Summer of Marvin Gaye (2004) and my James Brown Period (summer 2006-present). I bought a 4-CD box set of Tharpe's work just before Tower Records' demise, and I've been listening to her music as I savor Wald's book. This video is of a 1960s-era performance on TV Gospel Time with the Olivet Institutional Baptist Church Choir.

Here's an NPR report on Sister Rosetta Tharpe, featuring an interview with Wald, Maria Muldaur, and Marie Knight.

My take on the project Shout, Sister Shout: A Tribute to Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Kayla Parker-Tolbert passes away

"For me, the goal is always a song you can sing forever, a song that will mean something to people of all kinds."

--Kayla Parker-Tolbert, who recently passed away.

I first heard Kayla Parker-Tolbert's rich, agile lead vocal in the early 1990s on Marvin Winans' Introducing Perfecting Praise. I remember being amazed by the range she displayed on "Now Are We." For a long time, I couldn't figure out whether I was hearing one voice or two--one low, one high. I also thought "Perfecting Church" was a powerful cut.

Since then, I've enjoyed her work with Vanessa Williams, Tim Bowman, CeCe Winans, and most recently Vickie Winans (though she's been on many, many other albums). And I've longed for her to make a solo album. I keep a short list in my mind of artists I'd love to see move from the background to the forefront, and Kayla Parker-Tolbert was at the top. As it turns out, she was working on an album for release this year.

She had one of the most beautiful, versatile voices I've heard, and I can't believe she's gone.

Here's a YouTube video of Kayla Parker singing "Now Are We."

Read the Black Gospel Promo release on Bob Marovich's blog, where I learned about her passing.

Find out more about Kayla Parker-Tolbert on her website, and on a MySpace page dedicated to her.

A Good Musician Is Hard to Find?

Recently, The New York Times and PBS' Religion & Ethics Newsweekly each reported on the difficulty many African-American churches face in finding and retaining musicians who are familiar with traditional gospel music.

Samuel Freedman's NYT piece identifies several reasons for this trend: The growing influence of hip-hop among younger musicians, a decline in the types of school music programs that employed church musicans, and a commercial marketplace more friendly to gospel musicians, giving them more options for their gifts. There's even some discussion of the ways the popularity of "name it and claim it" theology has affected this issue (Though I think it overestimates this factor--prosperity theology isn't considered mainstream evangelicalism. Still, it is interesting--and, I think, fairly rare, though not inaccurate--to hear African-American churches described as evangelical.)

Although I appreciated this piece, I didn't appreciate the faintly disapproving tone the people interviewed seem to have toward younger musicians (though I respect their scholarship). I left with the sense that they view younger musicians as shallow, mercenary hip-hoppers who aren't really interested in serving God with their music ("just another gig.")

I wonder if there's a more significant generational angle that's not being explored here. After all, there's a great deal of great gospel that's been produced since the 1960s and 1970s, which Freedman calls "contemporary." I guess that designation is historically accurate, in the same sense in which the 1950s are seen as the Golden Age of gospel. Still, for someone who grew up in the hip-hop era, Edwin Hawkin's "Oh Happy Day" is "classic" gospel. And Cleveland's music, though groundbreaking, relevant and interesting, is not seen as contemporary. For people in their 20s and 30s, contemporary gospel is early BeBe and CeCe Winans, The Winans, Commissioned, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, The Clark Sisters, etc.--largely music produced in the 1980s. I'm wondering if part of the issue is that these pastors and potential music ministers have conflicting, generationally-driven ideas of what constitutes an appropriate repertoire. There's a bigger shift going on here, I think.

Bob Abernethy's Religion and Ethics Newsweekly piece deals more with the question of preservation, which I find compelling. How can churches make sure that traditional gospel music and the spirituals tradition thrive? Again, I don't think it's necessary to set hip-hop and hymns in opposition--I disagree with Dr. McMillan's statement that people are more likely to remember hymns than hip-hop--but I do think Dr. Simpson makes an important point: younger people do need to receive exposure to and training in traditional music, if it is to survive.

For me, the questions that need to be explored are:

• How can churches make sure they expose young people to traditional music and the spirituals, with the goal of encouraging and cultivating musicians for the future? What might that look like? Could it involve providing music lessons at the church, or sponsoring music lessons for young people who seem to have musical gifts?
• Given the generational issue I described above, do you think churches should be more open to a broader group of gospel sounds? For example, might worship services include spirituals, traditional gospel, praise and worship, and maybe even holy hip-hop?
• Can church musicians have artistic freedom, or are they expected to stick to a specific type of songs? If so, why? In my opinion, part of trusting a musician and respecting his or her skills and calling should involve working together to make sure the music ministry not only serves current ministry needs and goals, but also gives the music minister the freedom to grow, stretch, and take the congregation new places, musically and spiritually. (For one example of this, read my interview with Byron Cage.)
• Should churches try to offer more competitive salaries in hopes of recruiting and retaining skilled music ministers? In my opinion, this wasn't addressed well--or fairly--in these two pieces. Do churches offer reasonable salaries for the kind of commitment they require?
• What other issues do you see here?

Finally, this week's poll question: Does your church employ a salaried music minister?

Rediscovering Commissioned

A couple of weeks ago, I started listening to Praise and Worship: Commissioned, one of several Verity Records/Legacy Recordings compilation albums featuring gospel music of the 1980s and 1990s.

This album reminded me what a significant part Commissioned has played in my life. Like Take 6 and the Winans, this group's discography is part of my soundtrack. Number 7 was one of the first albums I bought for myself, and somewhere in my apartment is a well-worn State of Mind cassette. I did lots of step aerobics to Matters of the Heart ('cause it was the 90s, that's why), and I made the 5-hour drive from my college campus to my first job interview listening to Time and Seasons.

During the group's heyday, Commissioned really had the total package. A combination of innovative production techniques and an urban R&B sensibility that drew from the male quartet tradition. Incredible songwriting that was very emotive, relational and contemporary.

Commissioned is so beloved because their music provides a soundtrack for those of us who are learning what it means to have faith permeate every part of our lives. Commissioned's music helped us hear what relevant everyday faith sounds like, Monday through Saturday, more directly than a lot of more traditional gospel music. It bridged the gap between the celestial and the temporal. The deacons may have raised "A Charge to Keep" from the front row pew on Sunday morning. But on your way to work, you could fight rush-hour traffic while bobbing your head to "Be an Example." Same concept, different language. And it wasn't superficial, the way some contemporary gospel can be. Put in a Commissioned disc, and you hear a lot of honesty. You hear wisdom earned through struggle. You hear frank dialogue with God, and the language of joy, celebration, repentance and dependence.

The music is especially powerful because while it's open to everyone, it offers an aural paradigm for a particularly masculine way of doing faith. (I wouldn't describe it using the idea of muscular Christianity, but I sense an intersection there. )My sense is that the men of Commissioned demonstrated a way of being Christian that young, cool, urban African-American men could relate to. Their music integrated values that many see as feminine--or typical of feminine/"feminized" religiosity (collaboration, expressiveness, emotiveness, vulnerability, humility, spirituality) in ways that are very masculine. (Parenthetically, I sense some of these same intersections in the music of jazz vocalist Kurt Elling.) Commissioned made room for a contemporary, masculine form of gospel that shaped not only a generation of young Christians, but young Christian men: a way to see themselves openly questing after God and pursuing faith, without having to wear a choir robe or a dark suit, or speak Christianese.

As I observe the ways that Christians are currently discussing ideals/ideas about masculinity and femininity, and consider the ongoing discussion about homosexuality in the gospel music community, I appreciate Commissioned's inadvertent contribution to the discussion. Musical gender work, as it were.

Because I listened to Commissioned during my formative years, listening now gives me an especially meaningful gift. I am reminded of what it meant to have innocent faith--to internalize the tenets of faith so that they became part of me before I truly needed to believe them with actual faith. As I sing along, I remember when trust was so very easy, and answers always seemed to fit. I am returned to myself, and returned to first love and belief. I am given a language for faith and repentance and hope.


After listening to the compilation, I pulled out my copy of the Commissioned Reunion live recording, and it's been in heavy rotation for the last couple of weeks. Even though it was their last hurrah, it's an excellent introduction to this groundbreaking group. And if you didn't get to see this incredible concert (and I did!) you'll feel like you were there. The excitement and energy stream from the speakers. A DVD of the initial recording is also available.

In response to a friend who asked what my favorite Commissioned song is, I generated a list of about 20 favorite songs. So I'm using that question to debut a new feature for GospelGal.com: the weekly poll (it's on the left side of the page). Weigh in by voting for your favorite song--and let me know why it means so much to you by posting a comment. If I haven't listed your song ("Oh, that's my jam!"), post about that, too.

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Get acquainted with Commissioned--or download some of your old favorites--at Rhapsody's Commissioned page. Check out Google's Commissioned page to view their discography.

GospelFlava.com has several articles on Commissioned, mostly focused on 2002's Reunion tour. This article offers a good overview of the broad impact group members have had on gospel and mainstream music.

Although I didn't pay it much attention when it was initially released, this week I'll be listening to Mitchell Jones' Still Commissioned.

If you're aware of a Commissioned tribute site, let me know by leaving the URL in the comments section.