The Grammys 2023: Decadence is not Free

I did not watch the Grammys. I YouTube’d some conservative, Christian and religious critiques of it. I saw the usual Black liberal sectors praising its inclusivity and celebration of all lives and lifestyles. Needless to say I am shocked by the messaging, quite deliberate messaging and it is not because I am a prude.

Let’s talk about the optics on celebrating something ‘unholy’, as a culture. When their movement got the world stage, in the fullness of ‘pop culture acceptance’; after years of trying to get the churches to accept it (LGBTQIA matrimony and family)as ‘holy’, after years of trying to get the government to accept it as part of normalcy; after years of purporting to just seek ‘normalcy’ and to be treated ‘normal like other families’ in other public spaces; they get in public spaces and then worship devils. The name of the song with non-binary performer and a transgender woman was ‘unholy and it included dancing devils and a horned ‘superstar’ with a transwoman in a cage dancing erotically with fire erupting all around. How are the feminists completely missing the point he mocked ‘feminism’ and women by putting himself in a cage and dancing like a stripper (as though that’s all he thinks women’s bodies are good for). Was this done to mock feminism and women? Or perhaps they had a bigger target. Was this to mock God, provided one thinks that ‘He is’. Or was this done to (as it were) prove that God doesn’t exist by suggesting that if God had a ‘problem’ with it, surely it would not have gotten this far.

To all of my friends in the churches, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and United Methodists that have embraced the transgender sexually woke movement; is this (the performance by Sam Smith at the Grammys) what you signed up for when you embraced not only inclusion but affirmation? Some two-bit hip-hop nigga rambling and musing on religious imagery out of the vanity of his own imagination, not in line at all with how his African American southern ancestors mused on God and the language they used. That’s what you signed up for, to get your theology from, Beyonce, Sam Smith and Jay Z? When the theological liberals loosened scriptural interpretation, could they have seen the breakdown in public discourse about God and the validity of basic scriptural premises? They mocked God so openly at the Grammys! The Jay song is an ode to materialism and how the masses of us regular people are jealous of them (rappers) winning…but and this is the hook…God did it…’face tats’ and all and he raps the line he’s the ‘apex’ and that he ‘fucked the world but practiced safe sex’.

God is not a man that He can be mocked, in addition to not being a man, that he should lie or repent. Every God fearing American should shudder and fall to their knees before God because of what is now purported to be entertainment in America. But the tragedy goes even deeper. Suppose, Sam Smith performance notwithstanding, the Grammys promoted good values, sportsmanship, celebrations of the arts and culture and a love of humanity? It is certainly possibly. But this was not the case.

Chris Brown was the definition of a ‘sore loser’ (literally). He expressed utter indignation at the fact his ‘accomplishments’ were overlooked in favor of an ‘experimental’ jazz hip-hop neo-soul pianist and musician he had never heard of. And if that were not reason enough in his overestimation of himself and vanity, he cited his own sales in the argument that his ‘work’ should have won because it sold so many more units and downloads in the marketplaces of music. No wonder Black kids are messed up, look at who they are presented as role models. It is plainly apparent now in retrospect that Kanye storming the stage on behalf of Beyonce was only a mild early symptom of his future maladies and madness. It was as though his running on stage in indignation was simply sneezing and a runny nose (unpleasant but harmless enough). But a good doctor or psychologist with a more discerning eye, may have seen the beginnings of what is now full on pneumonia….if we add Will Smith into the mix, clearly these award shows are not healthy places for Black children to aspire to or get role models from. Charles Barkley tried to tell us a long time ago but we still let ‘woke’ liberals and exploiters of ghetto culture argue Jay Z and Young Thug are role models.

I say that in all honesty. Is it liberating and how so, to treat your children to what one White conservative critic called a full-on satanic ritual in the Sam Smith performance and the nigger entertainment peanut gallery claps like society won a prize. I couldn’t tell you, but the imagery said all I needed to see. The pyrotechnics and fire imitated  and mocked the hell fire. Why do they play with this imagery after telling us all they want is to integrate our churches, mosques and temples and that they mean no harm and do not represent a threat to ‘tradition’. Let us think of the Lil Nas X video giving Satan a lap dance as flames erupt all around. Why are they so comfortable with such symbolism and imagery? Why do they not talk about lilies and flowers, leprechauns and wood sprites? Why do they put so much money and so much imagination and design of sets, outfits and choreography into presenting Satan not only as real but capable of enjoying human pleasures, as it were, with us and sharing in the whole pleasure seeking God mocking demonic enterprise.

There, I will leave it alone. Our next critique might be considered political. Why would Black people, supposedly our best and brightest sit around and not only allow people to mock our God around us, but we salivate like hyenas and resort to Chris Brown and Kanye West style public teachery to debate another human being in celebration or ourselves, all so we can get a trophy from the White man. Yes. I said it. Your art and sense of why you do what you do depends on getting a trophy and gift bag from the White man?

You’ll run up on stage, demeaning another human being getting an award because you feel that strongly about the ‘correct’ appropriation of the White man’s trophies? You’ll walk up on stage and slap a nigga because you feel that strongly about a White man’s trophy on your trophy night and no two bit nigga comedian is going to disrespect you when ‘you getting you White man’s trophy’? Bruh? Is the White man’s trophy that important to you? Are you perhaps investing the White man’s trophy with too much…power? Idol gods, masters we seek to please? How do you please it, by worshipping it, over esteeming its value. The ancient Hebrews and a lot of others too believed the golden calf or a representation of a golden calf in the form of a statue with 5 or 6 titties will make your wife, your land, your animals and your children fertile. I was looking at a sports documentary and there was a player that had a favorite pair of socks. They were his lucky socks. There was an investment of power, even into these socks that the socks turned into a little idol or talisman.

Clearly Jay Z, Beyonce, Jerrod Carmichael, Chris Rock and every nigga making the rounds feels very strongly about the White man’s trophies. If you dare critique them, they tell you you’re jealous. Almost like a magic talisman these awards symbolize power and draw down blessing in the form of record and movie sales and deals as new listeners and viewers try to figure out why you got the award that year. They want platforms and to be wined and dined and get the tacit approval of the White people you so admire. Lawd, the way these niggas holler about their EGOT and other awards as they cry tears of joy, you’d think they loved them more than God.

And oh yes, exactly as I predicted in my ‘Black Bourgeois Guide to Post Modern America’, Madonna was there looking crazy and creepy and it was quite apparent she had some sort of facial augmentation. Was she chasing the mere appearance of youth, vitality and immortality (after all of that Yoga and Kabballah study)? How far is she and the Silicon Valley dude that spends $18,000 a month on health and regenerative body activities and products willing to go in the name of challenging God to immortality? We are told he is 40 with the body of an 18 year old…maybe but has he been ‘Born again’ and rejuvenated by the Holy Ghost? It is a symbol of the decadence, the symbolism of the judgement. I fear for the land. We mock God, sacrifice to idols and devils, encourage cults of sensuality and the worship of luxury and luxurious lifestyles. Wherefore you put your treasure in statues and elite gift bags? Literally and figuratively. Is God to be mocked? The owner of the Heavens and the Earths; the Immortal, Eternal. The one who made gold, diamonds, rubies, pearls and things as yet dazzlingly precious and strange we have yet to even imagine.

We dare God, that man’s concoctions can solve the mysteries of life, health, sickness and disease. He dares God that he is going to live in excess, as though the angel(s) of death had no wings through space or time. As for this tech guy looking for Ponce De Leon’s fountain/marketable serum of youth, It is not his aims or methods that I question it is that he allows himself to be celebrated and made a public spectacle of as though his pretensions were guaranteed, if not merely possible. Even if he lives till he is 140, what of it? Are we to assume his ‘emotional’ and intellectual quality of life is as excellent as his physical health? The incumbent stress of allowing oneself to be commercialized and hailed as some kind of forerunner or prophet of a new ‘way of life’, religious workout and diet regimen is not exactly conducive to a low stress life. The cumulative effects of all but guaranteeing those who follow you (140 years) or who can afford to follow and buy the health products you are pushing will take its toll. Is it a man’s capacity to guarantee that for himself or others? Is he mocking God, (who as it were) could kill any extant being by any means necessary or is he proving God doesn’t exist by daring God to intervene prior to what his human mind and technology can get him in life span. There is a dangerous spirit in this age; vanity and vain imaginations, luxury and pomposity are virtues.