Black British Gospel-Pop Crossover

The term secularisation was popularised by Max Weber and pertains to the existence of an occidental milieu that does not include God. Secularisation theory proposed that the modernisation of society (through rationalisation and the enlightenment) would bring about a decline in religiosity across the West, leading to ‘entzauberung’ (disenchantment). Eventually, society would be devoid of belief in the transcendent. In his book, A Secular Age, Charles Taylor challenges this theory by suggesting (with some qualifying factors) that a re-enchantment of the West better describes the secular age that we occupy.Taylor submits that we can perceive the re-enchantment of this secular age through the human relationship with art. The sacred-secular distinction was not a familiar concept to Africans arriving in the new world during the transatlantic slave trade. Music had played a central role in the lives of pre-diaspora Africans, without differentiating between sacred and secular musicking. For this reason, it has historically been difficult within the Black community to apply the sacred/secular distinction to Black Christian musicking. In spite of some of the historical doctrinal opposition within Black majority churches, Black Christian Gospel owes its heritage to this west African worldview. From the well-received performance of Stormzy at Glastonbury (‘Blinded by your Grace’), to the performance of the Kingdom Choir at the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle in 2018 (‘Stand by Me’), it is clear that Black British gospel musicians are crossing the boundary between sacred and secular music on a consistent basis. In this chapter, I will engage with Taylor’s cartography of this secular age at the intersection of theology and musicology. I intend to propose a theory that explains the interplay of sacred and secular within Black British gospel music performance

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