Gospel
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Finding Healing in Gospel Music
I wasn’t pressured to be stoic. I was permitted to release. I was permitted to be.
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This Week in Books: Field Theories
Welcome to This Week in Books, where we highlight books just released by small and independent presses. Books have always been a symbol for and means of spreading knowledge and wisdom, and they are an important part of our toolkit…
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This Week in Posivibes: The Zion Travelers
Aquarium Drunkard has unearthed another incredible rerelease in 1996’s The Dootone Masters from Ace Records. Based in the LA area for over two decades, The Zion Travelers put out their first record on Atlas in 1947 and eventually came to the Dootone…
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Song of the Day: “Tennessee Waltz”
Every music genre shifts its boundaries over time, and soul music has done so time and time again, beginning with its heyday in the 1960s. Sam Cooke, who achieved fame first as a young gospel performer in the 40s, is often considered its inventor.…
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R.I.P.: Washington Phillips
As a culture, we tend to place more significance on the mystique of death than the actual event. We avoid considering the details: the transportation of the body down to the morgue, the excising of the organs, the decay of…
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The Saturday Rumpus Interview: Guy Forsyth
Singer-songwriter Guy Forsyth talks about his time with the much-storied Asylum Street Spankers, his David and Goliath-esque legal battle against his former record label, and his latest album, The Freedom to Fail.
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The Rumpus Sunday Book Review Supplement
It’s been one hell of a week for Rumpus books, complete with a review by D.A. Powell of Rachel Loden’s Dick of the Dead and an interview with Jonathan Ames. Come read!
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Fingers Through Holy Water
Gospel music, like its secular cousin the blues, never wallows in pity, but instead seeks to transcend pain and reach glory. Bashir’s book makes the same trip.
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“Stabilimentum,” a Rumpus Original Poem by Samiya Bashir
Stabilimentum Bend into my mouth before frost ends us.