Page 171 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense

156 Francio Guadeloupe

for the Devil to continue asserting his influence in his life. His “nigga
Damion,” a corruption of the Damion character in the Hollywood cult
classic the Omen, cannot be exorcised.
The general format of radio programming on SXM, which DJ Shadow
imitates in his five-hour program, also endorses the idea of having to live
with Damion. There is no strictly religious based radio station on SXM.
All radio stations are Christian oriented, emulating the dominant form of
doing religion on the island. Monday to Saturday from 5 am to 7 am all
one hears on the radio is devotional programs where Gospel music or
Conscious Reggae is broadcast. This is followed from 7 am until 8 am by
serious news casting. The rest of the day is dominated by worldly music
and upbeat shout outs and request lines. It is only after 12 midnight that
most radio stations switch to easy listening prerecording to begin the offi-
cial broadcasting at 5 am with religious music.
Saturday and Friday midnights are, however, exceptions since on these
days lots of party songs are played. This has to do with the fact that these
are the days most youngsters and adults visit clubs. By playing music that
gets SXMers in the mood, radio offers itself as a companion for those who
are going clubbing.
Sundays work somewhat differently since, on the Lord’s day as they say
on the island, devotional radio begins at 5 in the morning and usually lasts
until around 12 in the afternoon. This is followed by easy listening, which
is alternated with more up tempo party music in the late afternoons. The
switch in the afternoons has to do with the fact that many persons who
work six days a week, mostly the working class, will go clubbing on Sunday
evenings to dance the stress away.
What this sequencing of radio tells us is that most SXMers are social-
ized to see human living as starting with the Lord, as theological, which is
transfigured into the political of worldly matters of concern, which quickly
gives way to the hedonism that reigns supreme. This hedonism, however,
cannot resist the higher ethics of the theological from which it was born
and to which it returns. There is thus a circular logic of an eternal return
in this mode of Christianity.
The Shadow works exactly in this way. He starts out with a prayer, after

the prayer one gets an hour of Conscious Reggae where he will tackle a
major societal issue or international affair, giving his political point of view
on the matter. It is during this hour that he exalts the Lord and blazes
politicians and religious leaders. Thereafter he goes on to play Calypso,
Jamband, Salsa, Meringue, RandB, and Soul. He ends his program with
DMX’s prayer wishing his audience God’s blessing.
The switch was most discernible in one of his shows on Haitian boat
refugees that were being refused in the United States. He sang a brief a