What is "Christian" music?
Two new albums offer antidotes to the anodyne
Before I get into this week’s post, I want to remind you about my upcoming shows. First, Dallas Comedy Club at 10 pm on Friday, 9/6. Get your tickets today!
And second, if you’re in Tyler, I’ll be hosting a show at Rose City Comedy Club next Friday on 9/13. I’ve performed in Tyler several times this year, but this may be the last time for a while so make sure not to miss this one!
I do a lot of thinking about what constitutes “Christian” art. It’s something musicians talk about all the time. Usually that label is placed on an artist for marketing purposes. It’s often a very cynical move to get the artist played on Christian radio, one of the few very lucrative genres left in radio. A record company would love for an artist to outright call themselves a Christian singer and put out generic hit after generic hit.
But many artists look at their art in the same way I look at my comedy: I am a Christian who does comedy. My faith informs every thing I do in life. Sometimes that even means my jokes might be about church. But that also doesn’t mean that I only do Christian comedy or that I want to be placed into a “Christian comedy” genre and only play church events.
That would actually be a very lucrative move if I did that. Christian comics can make a lot of money doing church events. But it wouldn’t be honest. It would change how I wrote and how I thought. There would be honest jokes that I would shy away from because of potential backlash from the most buttoned-up churchgoers. You see the same thing in all forms of Christian art.
What makes most Christian music, movies, and books generic and cookie cutter is that they can’t be honest. They can’t talk about the realities of life. They can’t address sex, violence, or greed. They can’t explore the dark recesses of the human heart too much for fear of offending people. God forbid they curse in the course of doing any of these things. They’ll never be played on the radio or have their movies or books sold at Mardel. Hobby Lobby will never feature them in an ad or give them a signature candle scent.
Frankly, the only thing in most Christian circles that addresses the darkness of the human heart, including terrible violence and uninhibited sex, is…the Bible.
The reason I’m talking about this is that two albums were released last week that occupy a space that is mostly empty in modern art.
I call it Explicit Christian Music.
Of course, I’m being a little cheeky with the word “explicit” here. I’m really just referring to the label used on albums with curse words in them, not some kind of Game of Thrones-level vulgarity.
Still though, these two albums are fascinating examples of what happens when someone honestly explores their faith through their art.
Hood Hymns
The first album in this category is Tobe Nwigwe’s Hood Hymns. Every song on this album is labeled as explicit, but that’s only because of Tobe’s deliberate use of the N word throughout. It’s not full of the other curses you’d expect of a regular rap album.
Tobe is a self-made, completely independent rapper, who along with his wife, has built a massive following and career out. He’s released nine albums and has gained the respect, and collaboration, from extremely famous people like Dave Chappelle, Erykah Badu, Pharrell, 2 Chainz, and many more. He’s even co-starred in Netflix’s show Mo and the new Transformers movie.
When his career began, he was almost exclusively rapping from the Christian perspective. He could be compared to rappers like LeCrae or Andy Mineo in his dedication to using Hip Hop to spread the Gospel. But his last few albums have veered away from specific discussions of God.
Though always focused on a positive message, specifically encouraging his fellow African-Americans to improve their lives, take care of their families (he and his wife have five kids), and increase their wealth through smart investments, the message of the Gospel has seemed to fall by the wayside.
That is, until Hood Hymns dropped this week. You won’t find a more explicitly Gospel-centered album anywhere. Every single song praises Jesus, asks for his blessing on the downtrodden, and beseeches those in the hood to turn to Christ.
But you’ll never hear this played on Air1. That’s because Tobe is from the hood, specifically the SWAT (southwest Alief, TX), and made this album for the hood. Honestly, I don’t even know if I should be writing about this one. It wasn’t made for me at all. It’s for African Americans in the hood. As such, Tobe uses language of the hood. He uses artists from the hood. He begs Jesus to heal the hood. He dreams of a heaven filled with his friends and family from the hood.
Tobe has pulled himself out of the hood that he grew up in through his own hard work and talent. Instead of leaving it all behind, he’s gone back into the hood to give them a clear message: money, success, and fame are not what will save you. The only thing that can fix your life is Jesus. And he did it using the language, wording, and visuals that make that message connect to the intended audience.
It’s as Christian as art can get, and yet you won’t hear it in church, on the radio, or in the next anodyne movie starring Kevin Sorbo.
Wild God
For those who are looking for the opposite of Hip Hop, but very much in the same vein of “Explicit Christian Music” I give you Nick Cave’s new album Wild God.
Giving a biography of Nick Cave in such a short setting would be nearly impossible for anyone unfamiliar. Honestly, you’ll need to just read his Wikipedia page. And then listen to some of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 18 studio albums (I recommend Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus and Push the Sky Away as good entry points). And then watch the one of the three documentaries made about him since 2014 (I recommend 20,000 Days on Earth).
The point is, he’s done a lot. And a lot of that work has dealt with, and reveled in, dark subject matter. He’s got an entire album called Murder Ballads. For much of his career he’s been a sort of dark guide, taking listeners down into the depths of human depravity and exploring the inner demons we all have. One thing you could never accuse Cave of was being overly happy.
Much of his life was consumed by drug addiction and broken relationships, even as his acclaim grew. He finally kicked his addictions, settled down with his wife Susie, and had twin boys who were born in 2000. Though his art was still fixated on the darkness, his life, it seemed was becoming happier. You glimpse this in 20,000 Days on Earth in a scene where he’s watching a film with his 13-year-old boys.
Then, in 2015 it came crashing down. His son, Arthur, fell off a cliff and died. The normalcy and happiness that Cave might have found was gone, replaced by an unfillable chasm of grief.1
He addressed these feelings with the dense, dark, complicated Skeleton Tree (2016) and Ghosteen (2019) albums. Cave’s faith has always been a difficult part of his artistry and life. Even in his darkest, most rebellious albums of his youth, he couldn’t help being drawn to Christian metaphors and stories. Then in his most desperate times, he seemed to be reaching for more than just metaphors and stories, but truly feeling out into the darkness for Christ himself.
In 2022, he released a book called Faith, Hope, and Carnage where he expands on his deepening faith. And he further delves into this topic with Louis Theroux in a podcast interview. It’s clear that Cave’s turn towards faith is not one of convenience or out of a desire for popularity. In fact, in the circles Cave runs in and amongst the people who often interview him, simply the fact that he attends church is a topic of endless fascination, as if he’s discovered some strange new workout routine or diet.
That background brings us to his latest album, the long-awaited Wild God that was released last week. There’s only one word to describe it.
Joyful.
Triumphantly, unabashedly joyful. These are not words that have ever described a Nick Cave piece of art before. He discussed why in an extended interview with Stephen Colbert a few weeks ago. Essentially, the darkness he experienced when his son died led him down a path to discovering the true joy that can be found in life.
It’s not a cheap joy to sell records. There are no corny Christian anthems aimed at Air1 or youth camp recap videos on Tik Tok. But there is a level of depth that has rarely ever been captured through music. Cave here is more vulnerable about his personal faith than he has ever been.
Is Wild God Christian art? It depends on how you define that. Cave is at the point in his own faith journey where he openly describes himself as a believer and he is constantly talking about God and the benefits he has gained from this faith. So, it is art made by a professed Christian, about that faith, and exploring what that faith can mean for those going through life.
Yet, it gets into topics that are off limits at church, but not nearly as much as most of his earlier albums. But I dare you to find a song on Christian radio that speaks truth like “Long Dark Night” or “Joy” do on this album.
One of the most famous Christian hymns is “It Is Well” written by Horatio Spafford. He wrote those words after his four daughters died in a shipwreck. It means nothing to say everything is well when times are good. It means everything to say it after your life has been devastated.
The joy that Nick has found isn’t because everything works out in life. It’s precisely because it doesn’t.
‘We’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy.”
A few weeks ago I assigned everyone the homework assignment of doing something outdoors that you’ve never done before. Although I continue to receive a lot of great feedback about that post (including more than one person who made their spouse read it), no one has told me if they completed this assignment. If you did something in the last few weeks as a result of reading my article, please let me know, I’d love to share.
Mine is kind of cheating. We went to Chattanooga last week and did a bunch of fun things, but the one that really stood out was Ruby Falls, which is the tallest underground waterfall in America2. It was incredible. Chattanooga, known as the Scenic City, has tons of outdoor activities. It would be even more fun in the Fall and Winter, but even in late summer it wasn’t too hot. Though the locals were basically falling out in the streets because it was 95 in the hottest part of the day.
In 2022, his son Jethro also died at the age of 31. He didn’t know Jethro well, as he was born via infidelity in a previous marriage. He hasn’t addressed this much at the behest of Jethro’s mother, but it’s clear this situation has created entirely different feelings of guilt and loss.
The tallest known underground waterfall. Even its discovery was an accident when explorers were looking for something else. So, get some dynamite and a helmet with a light and start spelunking, you could discover an even bigger one in your own neighborhood.