Sanctified and Sampled: Gospel’s Sonic Struggle

This week, I’ve been reflecting on the works of Ashon Crawley, Claudrena Harold, and Kevin Quashie, particularly on the quiet parts of music—the ontology of sound, the being within the person who creates it. How does one separate their religious self—not just spiritual, but deeply religious—from their sonic self? Can such a distinction even exist?

The readings suggest an ongoing tension in gospel music: the negotiation between pleasing the church, one's peers, oneself, God, and the broader public. If God exists, does God have a preference for which notes carry reverence? Does divinity dictate form, or is the offering itself what matters?

I grew up in a predominantly Black church, one that was once alive with the voices of young people. On one particular Youth Day, it was standing room only—shouts, soaring harmonies, music that filled every inch of the sanctuary. But over time, the same church became a space of judgment, resistance to change, and generational rifts. The so-called devil didn’t take the youth—the so-called Jesus people drove them away.

Musical evolution has always unsettled the church. If someone’s sonic language is shaped by jazz or hip-hop, should it matter? While the articles I read this week didn't mention LGBTQ+ subjects, the years of policing gospel sound in the church—by both critics and fans—led me to reflect on the broader policing of individual sexual proclivities within religious spaces. If an individual is a member of the LGBTQ+ community and their artistry reflects their full self, why is one verse weaponized against them while love thy neighbor is conveniently forgotten? The scholarship I encountered this week underscored these tensions: the ways gospel music has been policed, its boundaries debated. Some critiques are understandable—calling something gospel while omitting explicit references to God is complex. But context is everything. Gospel has always reflected its moment, shifting to meet people where they are. That raises a fundamental question: Who is gospel music for—Christians, the world, or both?

There is a belief in a so-called “traditional” gospel, but even that was shaped by the blues. Gospel, like any Black musical form, evolves in conversation with its historical moment. The 1970s saw Walter Hawkins and his choir members in afros, and bell bottoms.The 1980s brought The Winans, whose sound mirrored R&B groups like Levert and vice versa. My own musical sensibilities were shaped by my church, my city, my home. Los Angeles had a sound. Detroit had a sound. The Bay Area, the South—each region carried its own sonic theology.

In my household, we didn’t agonize over genre boundaries. The Winans sang about salvation, Levert sang about love, but both carried something undeniably spiritual. The landscape of gospel music shifted under the weight of Reaganomics, the crack epidemic, the decline of the auto industry, and gentrification. Gospel music stores closed. The question became: How do we sustain the music and the spaces that housed it?

Artists like BeBe and CeCe Winans didn’t necessarily save gospel music, but I argue they reinvigorated it, ushering in a sound that resonated with a new generation. And then there are The Clark Sisters—particularly Twinkie Clark—and their mother, Mattie Moss Clark. Whatever one may think of the Clark sisters or their mother Mattie Moss Clark’s personal politics, their sonic architecture reshaped Black gospel and, by extension, R&B and beyond.

These questions—of lineage, evolution, and resistance—continue to shape gospel music today. I’ll be writing more about this, about sound, faith, and the ways Black music holds history, belief, and survival. Because gospel music isn’t just about the church, it branches out into much larger spaces. It’s about the people.