If he had announced he was producing the next Wiggles cd, I think I would have been less surprised.
As a hip-hop kid from Haiti, how did you get into rock music?
My father was a Nazarene preacher, and his English wasn't too good. He went all over America as a missionary, and one day he comes back with a cassette by a rock band called Petra, this Christian rock band. I'll never forget it. We started listening to Christian rock: Petra, Stryper.
Stryper? Really?
Yeah, of course! I also had, like, Amy Grant. That was part of our church culture. Then I was like, "Yo, man, we got to start listening to some other shit." So we started listening to Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Pink Floyd. And my dad would accept it because he couldn't speak English. If I was listening to Metallica, he would say, "What's that?" And I would say, "It's Christian rock!"
4 comments:
Wow... I used to listen to Petra. I had almost every album they ever made. Then I sort of abandoned the Christian music world... The only Christian musicians I really listen to now are Michael Card and John Michael Talbot (Talbot's a monk and Card's a well-educated fellow (roughly a phd) who has made some rather scathing comments about the whole CCM culture).
I never really got into Petra, although I knew a guy in Nashville who was friends with the drummer's son. I abandoned CCM a while ago as well. I still like Derrick Webb (who also has an earful for Christian artists), Jars of Clay, and... ummm... uh... yeah, that's about it.
I've heard of both Card and Talbot, but don't think I've ever heard their music. Do you not listen to Sufjan? As a thoughtful, young, Reformed Christian I thought you were bound to by law.
Hi Sandy,
Sorry I didn't respond earlier... No, I've never heard Sufjan. Though I do think that someone at the seminary mentioned them to me... I'll have to check them out. Thanks for the heads up!
Sufjan is Sufjan Stevens. When people want to make the distinction between "Christian musicians" and "musicians who are Christians," he is the paradigmatic example of the latter.
I highly recommend checking out "Come On and Feel the Illinoise," which Rolling Stone picked as album of the year a couple of years ago.
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