Black British Gospel Music

Dulcie Dixon McKenzie is the Director of the Centre for Black Theology at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham, UK. She achieved her PhD at the University of Birmingham and has published in the area of Black British gospel music and church history. She is a multiple award-winning pioneer of Black British gospel music Radio, including a lifetime achievement award. Pauline Muir is a lecturer in Arts Management at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Awarded a PhD from Birkbeck College, University of London interrogating congregation music within UK Black majority Churches, her research interests are in the intricate interplay between ‘race’, identity, congregational music and the Black British Gospel industry. Monique M. Ingalls is Associate Professor of Music and Church Music Graduate Program Director at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, USA. She is the author and editor of several books on congregational music-making and serves as series editor of Routledge’s Congregational Music Studies Book Series.

Introduction: Rivers of Babylon: Contextualizing Black British Gospel Music

Pauline Muir, Dulcie Dixon McKenzie, and Monique M. Ingalls

1 Look Where God has Brought Us! Remembering the Religious Foundations of Black British Gospel Music

Dulcie Dixon McKenzie

2 ‘Gifts and Talents’: Sacred and secular musical performance at a suburban British Pentecostal church

Natalie Hyacinth

3 Just Like Church, Not Like Church, or Better Than Church? Community Gospel Choirs as Lived Religion and Convivial Spiritual Practice in the Contemporary United Kingdom

Monique M. Ingalls

4 Black British Gospel Music: A Perspective from A Reluctant Choir Director

Geraldine Latty Luce

5 Black British Gospel-Pop Crossover: ‘Gospel Codes’ in the Music of Stormzy and Mica Paris

Matthew Williams

6 The ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’ interplay within gospel grime performance

Samson Tosin Onafuye

7 Don’t shoot the Messi(nJ)ah: Charting the growth of the Gospel in Great British Grime music

Monique Charles

8 The Jamaican Bible Remix: A theomusicological praxis for bridging the gap between Black Liberation Theology and Contemporary Gospel Music in Britain

Robert Beckford

9 Black British Gospel Music and the Question of Belief (in God)

Alexander Douglas

10 Decolonising Congregational Music

Pauline Muir

11 Black British Gospel Music Past, Present, and Future: Final Reflections from the Editors

Dulcie Dixon McKenzie, Pauline Muir, and Monique M. Ingalls

Afterword: We Need Black Power, Lord! Reflections on Black British Gospel Music

William Ackah