Music, Religion and Politics – Conservatism in the Musical Practice by Evangelical Christians in Rap, Pop and Metal

• Applicant: Reinhard Kopanski
• Subject Area: Musicology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 493744730

Popular Christian Music (PCM) is an important social phenomenon and at the same time a market of millions including a network of labels, music producers, bands and music magazines. There are Christian solo artists and bands in different styles of popular music – ranging from rap to pop to metal – who are rarely represented in the German charts but whose music is of considerable importance for the evangelical movement. It is well known that popular music has – among other things – been used by musicians for many decades to convey political attitudes of different convictions. However, a potential connection between music and politics in PCM has so far been academically ignored with regard to Germany.This musicological study investigates whether strictly conservative (socio)political attitudes of evangelical Christians (e.g. rejection of homosexuality, patriarchal notions of gender differences, rejection of other religions) – which contain visible overlaps with right-wing populist positions – can be located in musical practices. Based on this, the first sub-goal is to identify and systematize musicians’ strategies for incorporating political attitudes into their musical practice. The second objective is to investigate what importance musicians from PCM attribute to politics. Subsequently, the third sub-goal is to answer the question of how musicians engage with the tension that their own (socio)political attitudes based on the evangelical worldview and its inclusionary claims can in part be exclusionary. In order to take the musical diversity of PCM into account, three different styles are examined: rap, pop and metal. The study is designed as a multi-stage, cyclical process in which six case studies (bands and solo artists) are examined according to a systematic scheme. The cyclical approach consists of 1) primary analyses of the respective musical practices (e.g. songs, artworks and video-clips). This forms the basis for the application of qualitative methods stemming from the field of social sciences: 2) the analysis of discursive forms of representation of the respective band or musician (interviews in Christian music magazines), 3) participant observations at concerts by the same bands/musicians and 4) interpretive evaluation of the results, 5) problem-centered interviews with these bands/musicians and 6) the accompanying triangulation of the different data sets. The outcome of the cyclical process is 7) a theory of the politics of Popular Christian Music.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants