Jamaican Bible Remix (Studio Album)
- Submitting institution
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Canterbury Christ Church University
- Unit of assessment
- 31 - Theology and Religious Studies
- Output identifier
- U31.001
- Type
- Q - Digital or visual media
- Publisher
- 5 AM Records
- Month
- February
- Year
- 2017
- URL
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https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/arts-and-humanities/school-of-humanities/religion-philosophy-and-ethics/research/jamaican-bible-remix.aspx
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- A world first for Theology, this collaboration between Beckford, the MOBO (Music of Black Origin) Award winning music producer Tony Bean (5AM Studios) and the Bible Society is an interdisciplinary, multi-media, theo-praxis. The Jamaican Bible Remix is a studio album, accompanied by music videos, that draws from the 2012 Jamaican translation of the New Testament (JNT) and mixes audio from readings of select passages from the JNT with contemporary urban Black music to provide a social and political theological commentary.
Within Black Atlantic worshipping contexts, the album breaches the methodological disconnect between Black Theology and contemporary Gospel music. Black Christians in Britain are more likely to produce knowledge about God from the songs they hear than weekly sermons. Therefore, the collective failure of theologians to engage audio culture as theological method has serious consequences. Without dialogue with Black and Womanist Theology, gospel music soundscapes evade theological reflection on some of the most pressing issues of the day, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, environmentalism and militarism, and remain captive to the soteriological myopia of colonial Christianity.
Methodologically the album triangulates postcolonial Biblical hermeneutics, contextual theology (black and womanist liberation theologies) and theo-musicology (inscribing theological ideas into music practice). The Jamaican language (patois) is read theologically as an atonement theory, where the use of the language constitutes liberation from the imperial linguistics of colonialism, and Britain’s domestic neo-colonial linguistic hierarchy. The album makes audible a sonic black and womanist liberation theology.
In response to academic discourse, this project responds to two issues. First, the accusations of academic myopia and logocentrism levied against British Black and African American liberation theologies. Second, the domination of audience and reception theory in consideration of meaning in theologies of popular culture. The project's emphasis on authorial intention underlines the importance of auteurs in the production of meaning.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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