Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

and you can trace that history back to similarly the way we trace the division between like country and R and B right into the history of race records, the way that different music has been marketed to different racial groups in the U S really since the beginning of the recording industry.

And, you know,

Country music and CCM are both based in Nashville.

Now, the gospel crossover is an interesting question because I like to watch for what elements of gospel artists like Maverick City Music or Dante Bo or CC1s are sort of allowed to bring with them into CCM because

Like you mentioned, there are elements of gospel music as practiced in churches that are not brought in, right?

Like the improvisation, the praise breaks, the harmonic complexity.

If you really listen to a lot of the music popularized by Maverick City, they bring with them instrumentation.

They bring vocal style.

They bring a lot of aspects that sound sonically like gospel music, but there are some pieces that they don't bring with them because

white churches won't know how to make that music.

So there is still this element of kind of church segregation, even shaping the ways that this music is made and produced and marketed and

And not just marketed to radio audiences, but marketed to churches.

That's the CCLI piece of this.

Christian Copyright Licensing International tracks the use of music across churches.

And there's a reason why so much of the music in there is tracking what's being used in white churches.

And there's not as much music that is regularly used by Black churches there.

So all of this is shaping the Christian music industry and the sounds of popular Christian music as we watch this all unfold.

Why might this music be resonating?

What does it tell us about masculinity and conservative politics and the search for faith at this moment?

Yeah, there is a big economy around this.