On Musical Revelations : Gender, Religion and Place in Popular Music

Abstract

This thesis investigates how religion affects popular music expression in the 21st century. Through hermeneutic readings of four audiovisual texts it examines how religious undertones play a part in popular music and its representations of identities, especially concerning gender and place.The first case is a music video by South African House artist DJ Sbu’s remix of Zahara’s song Lengoma (2011). This case explores how Pentecostal sentiments affect the representation of gender, place and ethnicity. A major emphasis is on how the music’s aesthetic creates a means of religious transcendence. The second case constitutes a picture collage put together to the music of the Norwegian Black Metal band Gorgoroth’s Sign of an Open Eye (2006). The focus is on how Gorgoroth’s religious leanings towards Nordic Mythology and Satanism are presented in their music and how it affects their representations of a white masculinity.The third case is Nas’s music video The Don (2012). This case study explores Islam’s impact on Nas’s music and how it plays a part in representing a black, “New York City –masculinity”. Lady Gaga’s music video Born This Way (2011) makes up the fourth and last case study. Here, the use of catholic imagery and Gaga’s representation of femininity and sexuality is discussed.Through this diverse spectrum of cases the thesis illuminates how religion works in different ways as a prominent force across a wide array of popular music genres, cultures and places. It points to some important ways in which religion influences popular music’s aesthetics and presentations of identity.