| Summary: | Religion and music are two cultural entities that have been closely related over time (Bossius, Harris & Häger 2010:1). To investigate this close relationship the author of this paper has chosen to use two theories. The first is the secularization theory as it is presented by James A. Beckford in his book Social Theory & Religion (2003), which expresses the idea that religion will become less visible in a society as it evolves and progresses. The second theory is based on music and is brought forth by Theodor A. Adorno in his paper On Popular Music (2008); it states that popular music is highly standardized and inevitably inferior to “Serious” music. The two theories will be used in researching and trying to understand how religion and music are interrelated to each other in Fiasco’s music and to investigate if the artist uses private or public religion in his music, furthermore the standardization theory will be used to see if his music and message are standardized. The aim of this paper is use the aforementioned theories by James A. Beckford and Theodor A. Adorno and see how they work in cohesion with Lupe Fiasco.The conclusion of this paper is that religion is influential and relevant in Lupe Fiascos music. In all his songs that have been released on CD: s, a total of 54 songs; 42 of these songs contained a religious word or phrase. This shows that the secularization theory, which stated that religion, would diminish and disappear from the public sphere the more modern a society got is not the case within the investigated artist and his music. The artists’ use of religion was a mix between public and private religion depending on the theme and message of the song. The second theory, which stated that popular music is standardized, could be verified, the message in Lupe Fiascos music is not new and neither it the music that he makes use of, even though the artist tries to give it a new sound. All music is standardized within its own genre and therefore will sound similar/standardized for one who is uninitiated within the different genres. Keywords: popular music, Religion, Lupe Fiasco, secularization, standardization, rap music.
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