Saturday, June 17, 2006

Essay 701


The following appeared in The New York Times…

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A Hard Core, Hip-Hop Spiritual Journey

By BRENDA GOODMAN

ATLANTA, June 16 — Just as the sun started to burn through the smog on a recent Monday morning, the Rev. Ricardo Xavier-Zatwon Bailey, 32, a priest at Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church here, loosened his collar, slipped on his headphones and rolled up to a radio-studio microphone.

“Yes, party people, it’s Father Ricardo Bailey coming at you live and hard core from the basilica at Q-100."

Sandwiched between songs by the likes of Trick Daddy and the Pussycat Dolls, Father Bailey has a weekly gig on one of the most popular morning shows in Atlanta, “The Bert Show,” where he has been introduced to listeners as “Father Crunk.”

That an ordained Catholic priest might call himself “Crunk,” a hip-hop fusion of the words “crazy” and “drunk,” might seem outrageous enough, but what is really making Atlantans choke on their morning coffee are his radio riffs, which take their cues as much from the pages of People magazine as the Book of Proverbs.

[Click on the essay title above to read the full story.]

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