Social Issues

“We All Try”: Philosophical Music

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019 Chris SunamiChristian Existential Humanism

Repost from 2015 Hip-hop singer Frank Ocean is well-known to march to the beat of a different drummer, and nowhere is that more apparent than in We All Try, a lovely and plaintive existential humanist[…]

Image: "Swamp Patrol" by Roger Blum

A Statistic of One

April 18, 2019March 30, 2019 Chris SunamiPoetry

This is a repost of a powerful poem by my late uncle John Gilmore, who was a US Marine in Vietnam, a substance-abuse counselor in civilian life, and a gifted poet in both realms. A[…]

Long Division

April 4, 2019March 30, 2019 Chris SunamiLiterature

I first encountered author Kiese Laymon when I read his essay “You are the Second Person,” an unapologetically bridge-burning reckoning of his encounter with a assimilationist editor who tried to deracinate his work. What stuck[…]

Image by Nishant Goswami

Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest

March 28, 2019March 29, 2019 Chris SunamiCompetition

The second Pirates movie was an entertaining romp, with some great action sequences, featuring the always-compelling Johnny Depp. However, the film also featured a disturbing racial subtext.   Most blatantly, the film trafficked in broad racial[…]

We Invented the Remix, Part II

November 8, 2018November 7, 2018 Chris SunamiHip Hop

Last time, we looked at hip-hop sampling as a outgrowth of African polyphony, a way of creating something new by placing a different and contrasting line over the original. But there is more to it[…]

Black Music As Philosophy: We Invented the Remix, Part I

November 1, 2018October 31, 2018 Chris SunamiHip Hop

Hip-hop music is unique. It has been multiracial from the start, and it has been embraced and naturalized all over the globe, and yet it still retains a basic, unbreakable connection with its natal black[…]

image by Natilles

Not Playing the Background

October 18, 2018October 18, 2018 Chris SunamiMusic

Out of all the great black American talents, the ones who have arguably fared the best are the singers and musicians. While it may only be a fraction of what they deserve, they have at[…]