BEHIND THE SCENES | Working on "Negro Spiritual"

THE HISTORY

There's a lot of history behind this episode. Considering I was working on it since the 7th episode, I guess it makes sense. The subject matter I had in mind even longer.

I talked about it from time to time on the Patreon blog and dropped some things in videos, but nothing major. The idea was never simply to discuss this idea of blackness and spirituality.

I always felt like black people who dive deeper into the world around them, and their history seem to have the common belief that their newfound 'consciousness' is incompatible with the idea of divinity. Or believing in anything grander. This notion of 'faith' is completely ommitted, and I found that fascinating.

And, that extends from blackness to this idea of being any form of left wing figure. Like, you can't truly be black and have faith. You can't truly be left wing and believe in a God. It was an interesting divide to me, and seeing my audience grow and people consistently express these viewpoints was fascinating. 

I knew I wanted to make a video to challenge these ideas. 

MY EXPERIENCE

For disclosure, I grew up in a Christian home. My family are Christians. However, I always found myself questioning the whole concept. Everything. Believing in a God, biblical scriptures, the contradictions within the bible, etc. I eventually came to the conclusion that I did believe in God, and I did believe in Jesus, but I didn't subscribe to all the things said in the bible.

Did that make me a Christian? To some, yes. To others, no. 

It meant I'd be lumped in with Christians by athiests, and it meant that I'd be rejected as a blasphemer by Christians. You're spiritually shunned in that sense. But, faith was personal, so it didn't really matter.

When I realised that everybody was just doing what they wanted anyway, it helped me come to terms with the fact that 'organised religion' is a farce in itself. Cause' very rarely do the people subscribing to it adhere to all its principles from a fundamentalist viewpoint. A lot of people were just deluding themselves.

Even if we're to look at Christianity. Jesus, in my opinion, wasn't interested in starting new religion. He just wanted people to have a personal spiritual relationship with God. He never expresses, once, that he wanted people to give his preaching a label.

MONTHS OF REWRITES

This video was messy. 

And there's a bunch of alternate scripts to it.

There's a script where I argue that Christianity shouldn't create passivity, but activism as it did in the past.

There's a script where I come off as dismissive to religion.

There's a script where I come off as too preachy about my own spiritual beliefs.

It was all about finding that balance, and that was the major struggle. I didn't wanna just get this video out of the way, for a few reasons. 

1) Cause' that's not what I do with Operation Black Steel. I don't make videos for the sake of making videos. 

2)  I knew it was a sensitive topic, and needed to be treated with an immense amount of care.

And 3) It was personal to me. Arguably, the most personal video I released to date. I couldn't live with just putting out any ol' video. I knew some of my viewers would be put off with their anti-spiritual beliefs, and I knew some people I knew in real life would be put off by the sharp criticisms I was giving religion. But ultimately, none of that matters when faith is personal and it's all about sharing your own reality.

THE MUSIC

Music was relatively simple this time around. I forgot to credit Alchemy Beats for their track "Don't Believe" that plays around the time I'm talking about Riley and Santa in the middle. Shout out to him.

Everything else were things I had in mind roughly. Everything fell in place when I heard the song "Dear God 2.0" by The Roots, which I felt really spoke to what I wanted to address. 

~Plus I'm a big fan of Black Thought~

CONCLUSION

Honestly? Editing wasn't the big deal. Recording wasn't a big deal. This stuff was actually done in under 2-3 days. The hard part, for me, is always the writing. Cause' the writing what shapes the skeleton of what I'm making. It's the substance.

Everything else is just flash. 

And, the worst thing I could be is all flash and no substance. I hope you guys enjoyed the video though. It meant a lot to me, and I really wanted to get it right. 

Stay real.