Does "Rock music is evil / of the devil" have racist roots? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago by PlanetOfOrd@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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As a Christian most of the circles I'm around are pretty chill...no stone-cold fundamentalists. But I have been around people (and even had family members) who are 100% convinced that rock music is evil and will lead people to engage in witchcraft and draw pentagrams all over their home.

The root of the belief is that rock music uses drums, which are used by voodoo tribes in Africa to entrance people.

Along a different track of thinking, from where did rock music originate? Slaves. They created the guitar because slave-owners didn't allow them to make music with drums.

So then is "rock music is evil" sort of an echo of that attitude?

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[-] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

That's a completely different perspective than I've ever heard in church. I grew up in a fundamentalist household and the whole "rock is of the devil" attitude was fueled mostly by artists like Black Sabbath and Danzig, where they have a demonic stage presence, and lyrics which are worldly. Danzig used actual devil imagery and pentagrams in his media, and Ozzie was known as the Prince of Darkness, so the Christians weren't really reaching to say that the artists were opposed to Christianity. Your interpretation probably has much older roots in Southern Baptist movements, which aren't prevalent in all denominations.

this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023

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