Much of pop culture is horrible, but then much of pop culture has always been horrible. Have you read the words to any given Stephen Foster song?
Just now the number one song in America is by Wiz Khalifa and is entitled See You Again. He has managed to be honored by the city of Pittsburgh while making a sex tape during his failed marriage and being a spokesperson for the use of cannabis. When faced with with someone who is popular and also decadent, my first temptation is to dismiss his body of work. Why bother to understand his music?
Of course, the answer is as simple as the fact that many people find meaning and value in the music . . . and he has obvious talent and wizardry that crosses many genres. There is enough depth to his work that it is tempting to write one of those condescending “old white guy appreciates what the kids like” pieces. I will not. I am not fit to do so.
Why?
I do not understand and love the music so I am not fit to criticize it. When I read someone on Plato, I know if he or she has marinated in the work and learned to love the Master even if they have come to hate his ideas. Plato is brilliant, world class, and we must begin by seeing the greatness. I do not go to a Shakespeare play and judge the Bard. I stand in awe and love him until I am able to see enough to venture a few criticisms. (Two Gentleman? Really?)
I cannot yet do that with the music of Wiz Khalifa because I do not yet understand it or see the merit that makes millions relate to it. Partly, this is because it was not written for me, but then neither was Republic. This is music by a man created in the image of God that many other God-bearers spend time and money enjoying. He takes his craft seriously and if I were to comment . . .one way or the other . . . I must comment from knowledge and love and not ignorance and reaction.
Why bother to say that I am learning and then say little about the music? I think it demonstrates the way we should approach any cultural element that is new to us, whether in pop culture or ‘high’ culture. I come to opera as a student with an open heart and mind. I come to Wiz Khalifa with an open heart and mind.
Easy enough to find what is objectionable to a Christian in his view of reality. He is wrong and ugly about many things . . . or at least so it seems on the surface. That is easy to see and easier to say given my social class. Why does he say such things? Why do so many relate to them? Why does the “establishment” all over the world promote his “counter-cultural” music? Has the counter-culture become so much the culture that it cannot avoid the Chamber of Commerce even when it tries? Even Miley Cyrus is finding it hard to be offensive enough to get those who suck up to stars to push back.
Nobody pushes back anymore.
Maybe after I come to love the artist Wiz Khalifa and understand his music I will push back. I will see beyond the obvious evils to deeper problems. I suspect that he is controlled by the gigantic corporations that love libertine values because they make placid consumers of us all. I am not sure. Maybe I will see deeper meaning and come to reject some of the superficial evil, but find a deeper good. I did that with Aristotle. If there is good to Nietzche, and there is, then there may be good to this year’s phenom Wiz Khalifa.
My plea to Christians is that first we must love the artist and then judge the art. Otherwise we might miss what we could reconcile to Jesus in a lost soul. After all, the number one song in America says:
How could we not talk about family when family’s all that we got?
Everything I went through you were standing there by my side
And now you gonna be with me for the last rideSo let the light guide your way hold every memory
As you go and every road you take will always lead you homeIt’s been a long day without you my friend
And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again
We’ve come a long way from where we began
Oh I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again
When I see you again
This is much here to love.
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