You know how I have a tendency to not refer to people by name? Well, screw that. I’m naming names in this instance.
I live next door to Fermin Cabral. Every so often he indulges in a little practice that he’s doing right now: He puts on make-out music and sings along to it. Here I am, in my room, trying to read my bible and think about Jesus, and I have to listen to him beg for nooky.
(Okay, I’m not currently reading my bible, but sometimes I am, and he’s still at it.)
I lived next door to him last year too, so yes, I had to put up with it all last year. At times it’ll be gospel music, and I have no trouble with that. Other times it’ll be Stevie Wonder, and as a fan I’m solidly of the opinion that nobody but Stevie should sing his own music, because everyone else just screws it up. (American Idol contestants especially.) But the other songs, which I call begging-for-nooky songs (’cause that’s what they do)—I don’t listen to that sort of music anyway, just because it strikes me as desperate, in a Spike-Lee-playing-Mars-Blackmon way. But Ferm likes it, and sings it, and… oh thank you Lord, he just stopped.
Some of it might have to do with the fact gospel (well, not white gospel) and R&B have been virtually the same music ever since Ray Charles started secularizing gospel to sell records. And that too much recent gospel music have taken the begging-for-nooky formula and turned it into begging-for-Jesus. Scary.