WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO PUT ME IN A BOX?

Do genre labels and categories lessen us? Do they reduce our work to one or two words, an archetype, a cliché, a thumbnail? Do they corral, trap, reduce and ultimately minimize us? Yes. They do. Of course, some work is more classical in form, it does not suffer so deeply from the fallout of bent genres, of straying outside these lines that are drawn. Sometimes gospel music is just straight up gospel music. But if you make gospel music and then suddenly get inspired to incorporate non-western scales — and what if you have some big idea to bring in an Indian harmonium, maybe little sitar —…