This past week has been nothing short of frustrating for me. Music is a great thing you can enjoy because it is simple and almost everyone connects with and speaks the language of music. Art is open to the interpretation of the listener once the artist releases it to the public, which is a good thing. I can only imagine the frustration that an artist experiences when their music is taken completely out of context or misinterpreted completely. I’ve been listening to Christian Hip Hop for a while now, and the amount of songs that have gotten misinterpreted in the short time I’ve been listening is nothing short of astounding. This has happened so much that I have developed a hypothesis about CHH fans. Either fans are not listening to the music or they are listening for specific things and get upset when those things are absent from music.
Things came to a head for me this week with a couple of incidents. Earlier this week I was jamming to Joey Jewish’s video “Brixton” and just enjoying the music and the visual interpretation of it. I made the cardinal sin of reading the comments below the video, but this time people seemed to be on one accord. However, one comment said he liked the vibes but where was the message? I wanted to rip my hair out because the message was clear as day (at least to me it was). Joey started the video by saying “wisdom is better than silver and gold.” That is a direct quote from the Bible but it flew right over this young man’s head. I don’t believe Joey said Jesus but he did end the song by saying “my lawd” at least five times. Joey spoke on chasing the wind (the theme of Ecclesiastes), seeking satisfaction in things, and having patience. None of that seemed to land on the person who made that comment. Maybe if Joey had used more theological terms or Christian jargon, the song would have been received better.
This is just one example of art that should have simple and straight forward but it flew over folks’ heads. I’m sure that this year had some songs that people totally misunderstood such as KB’s “Tempo” (how?), Tedashii’s “Jump out the whip” and “Be Me,” pretty much anything Reach Records does, along with many others. It seems as if fans have placed certain expectations on artists that did not ask for or that artists have told them they didn’t want placed on them. This begs the question: are fans actually listening? Are you listening to the words, using context clues, looking at the artist’s track record, or are you listening to the beat and how many times folks say the name of Jesus?
Music without lyrics are merely instrumentals and there is nothing wrong with that, but I’m assuming that if you are reading this, you like hip hop as an art form where the words matter as much if not more than the music itself. Emcees have the entire English language at their disposal and the best rappers manipulate as fluidly as a water bender from the Avatar series. Some of these writers are so prolific they can use simplistic words to communicate deep truths. It’s so easy to misinterpret or misconstrue something when you don’t know the heart behind what was said or the context it was written from. But that is no excuse. If we don’t understand something, it is on us to get that understanding. Lets do the research on the lyrics, learn the background of the artist because that background informs the artist’s words and view, and whatever else we need to do to understand. The Bible says “above all thy getting get an understanding” imagine if we did that regularly.
Artists can explain their art until they are blue in the face, but it is on the fan to actually listen. As a fan, we owe it to not just support the art we love but to make an honest attempt to understand it. It takes a certain type of person to make art and whole different kind of person to put it out for the world to consume even with the chance to get criticized. Fans wonder why folks aren’t making music for them, why would they? The harsh words, questioning salvation based on one song or an album, the personal attacks, are just not called for especially if we took the time to listen. The fans have always been the biggest problem with CHH and the fans’ problem has always been listening. The Bible says, “let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” How many of us are actually listening to what the artist is saying? We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Let us listen, understand and love more.
