Devil Is Fine, Devil Is Kind
Slave Spirituals, Satanic Black Metal, and Cultural Appropriation in the Music of Zeal & Ardor
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3852073 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Edward Clough (Newcastle University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 337-354 |
| Publication date | 2021-07-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Comparative American Studies An International Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1477-5700 • E-ISSN: 1741-2676 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14775700.2021.1981077 |
| OpenAlex | W3209649420 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 34 |
This article explores the relationship between cultural appropriation, musical protest, and African American history, as foregrounded in the music of avant-garde metal band Zeal & Ardor. Under the leadership of mixed-race Swiss-American multi-instrumentalist Manuel Gagneux, the band gained prominence in 2016 for combining the influences of Satanism and Scandinavian black metal with African American spirituals and blues. Such a combination has allowed Zeal & Ardor to creatively engage the violence of African American historical experience and sonically and conceptually explore the possibilities of an alternative account of African American experience under the influence of individualism and self-determination as promoted in Satanic philosophies. This proposition becomes complicated, however, when the Satanic worldview espoused in Scandinavian black metal articulates not only an aggressive critique of Christianity, but also, in a number of instances, the promotion of white supremacist and national socialist worldviews. The resultant combination of these clashing influences is a complex interlinking of musical traditions and ideological positions through which Zeal & Ardor explores cultural appropriation as a form of protest, and ultimately embraces jarring juxtapositions and messy fusion as a necessary mode of artistic expression amid the racial tensions and culture wars of the early twenty-first century
Aesthetics · Appropriation · Art · Black music · Cultural appropriation · Epistemology · Ideology · Individualism · Literature · Musical · Political science · Politics · Sociology · White (mutation · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · Music History and Culture · Musicians’ Health and Performance · Philosophy · Social Issues and Sustainability
Running with the devil
Borrowed power
Who Can Say "Nigger"? And Other Considerations
The Etymology of Nigger
Satanic Temple
Cultural Appropriation Without Cultural Essentialism
Musical Style, Ideology, and Mythology in Norwegian Black Metal
Speak of the Devil
Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry
Reichsrock
Gods of the Blood
Christian Slavery
Journal of Folklore Research
All Power to the Periphery”
Religion and the Antebellum Debate over Slavery
National Socialist Black Metal
White Negroes
What is (the wrong of) cultural appropriation
Anthem
New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements
Slave Religion
Towards a cultural sociology of popular music
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |