Album Review: Denver Rapper Examines Historic Figures on Depressed Joy

Denver professor, journalist, writer, podcast host and rapper Chris Steele, who goes by the musical moniker Time, produces hip-hop tunes as nuanced, intellectual and layered as he is.

His numerous written works dive into the very fibers of history and societal constructs, examining everything from race, patriarchy, class and colonialism to the music that reflects society itself. And all of the literary genius that's found in such projects as Acknowledging Radical Histories, or his collaborations with political activist and scientist Avram Noam Chomsky, known as the "father of modern linguistics," is woven into his music.

Steele's newest album, Depressed Joy, dropped on November 10, and is a prime example of the depth of his musically elite tunes. The thirteen-track album delves into nuanced topics of addiction, masculinity, Ernest Hemingway, Bobby Sands and, of course, depression and joy.

In his track about Hemingway, "A Suitable Beast," which was released earlier this year as a single, Steele drops bars stating it's "better to die in disillusioned youth than worn-out and jaded," while detailing the habits and legacy of the late writer. While it's about Hemingway, the song is also an examination of the patriarchy and masculinity, transforming into a space for Steele to explore his personal ethos and how the very social systems he is questioning appear within himself.

"It's really a reflection on how I was raised in a masculine way, in a masculine environment of 'Men have to not show emotions. Be dominating, be intimidating,'" Steele says. "I was reflecting on that when I was looking at Hemingway's life and how he wanted to be a hunter and always had these guns, and misogyny and domination, and how that plays in with so many things in society.

"I was just thinking about how these things are so violent to not only others — well, mainly to others — but also violent to yourself, as well, especially with patriarchal masculinity," he adds.

Steele is also in the process of publishing an article about the song, which he refers to as "an investigation cloaked in curiosity," for The Hemingway Review. In the piece, Steele muses on race and the performance of gender, and describes in detail how those ideas appear in "A Suitable Beast."

The songs "Tiocfaidh ár lá, Our Day Will Come" and "H Block Blues (For Bobby Sands)" pivot to a discussion about the Irish revolutionary Bobby Sands. Sands was a leader of the Irish Republican Army, the paramilitary force created in 1919 that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland. In 1981, Sands starved himself to death in protest of the treatment political prisoners faced while incarcerated in the Maze prison. The Special Category Status of political prisoners had been withdrawn, and paramilitary prisoners such as Sands were no longer treated like prisoners of war; they had to wear prison uniforms and work.

Steele, who has an insatiable fascination for political history, got his hands on Sands's prison diaries and spent six months reading through them. "I'm interested in autonomy and anarchist sensibilities and thoughts and liberatory thought. And my heritage is Irish, so I have a Celtic background," Steele says, explaining why he chose to include information about Sands on his album. "I'm a colonized colonizer; I don't even know my history, but I always try to honor my ancestors.

"I just wanted to honor [Bobby Sands], and I can't imagine making that type of sacrifice," he continues. "Reading his diaries just pulled out my heart to see what he was going through, and how he just wanted to fight for justice and to be free."

Even the album name, Depressed Joy, is more intricate than it initially seems. The hidden literary reference, Steele explains, nods to conversations he had with scholar Carla Joy Bergman on his podcast, Time Talks, in which they discussed her ideas about joy in her co-authored book, Joyful Militancy.

"We did a podcast episode together called 'Melancholy Joy,' and that's what really sparked it," he says. "And I had done this track with some people in Scotland...and in that track, I had a bar that said 'depressed joy, blue delight.' And I was just really playing with a lot of those paradoxes...so Depressed Joy just fit right in as kind of a yin and yang and breaking open those dualities."

As for why Steele wove so many profound and varied subjects into the album, he says he was collaborating with different spirits and, ultimately, working toward a record that would give him the space he needed for deep reflection.

"Along with the paradoxes...my main thing was to get my family involved. I have my mom on the first track, and my dad did a poem on the end," he says. "And the whole thing is about surrendering and finding space, because we live in this society where we're not encouraged to reflect. We're not encouraged to make art. We're just supposed to be grinding and paying for these twelve-dollar Denver espressos and expensive rent. My whole thing was trying to reflect and learn, thinking about surrender and what that actually means, and making space to reflect and make art."

Depressed Joy is now available on all streaming platforms.