ABSTRACT
The notion of popular religion is intriguing, both as the counterpart of institutionalised religion and an implicit amalgamation of the popular and the sacred. Inasmuch as popular music is conceived as the primary field of music industry and intellectual property rights management, the disputes over religious purposes as fair use by definition raise pivotal questions about the ontology of creativity and ownership. The extent to which this type of pop-cultural vending yields actual physical violence is uncertain, yet it is undeniable that in its close association with the overtly political “repolonising” attempts, Polish patriotic rap builds on an essentialist understanding of the nation “as an organic, biological, cultural, religious and historical community determined by bonds of blood”. The moral ambiguity of the religious sacred enters news headlines often, when at issue is the abuse of children by religious authorities, either sexually or otherwise physically.
