The Angle

The Angle: I Can Do All Things Edition

Slate’s daily newsletter on the potential of the liberal Christian, the first great gospel hip-hop album, and the one uncool thing about Steph Curry. 

Coloring outside the lines. Chance the Rapper performing at Governors Ball in 2014.

Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images

Hello and welcome back to another week of the Angle, Slate’s daily newsletter. I’ll be continuing to fill in for Rebecca Onion for a couple more days; here’s what I think you should read today.

Would you be surprised to learn that “[i]n the 2014 midterm election, 4 in 10 voters who said they attended church every week voted Democratic”? In this week’s Cover Story, Ruth Graham shines a light on the Christian left, a group that’s always gotten less attention than its counterpart on the right, but that right now has a real chance to reclaim its spot at the front and center of Democratic politics. As Graham writes, “With Hillary Clinton all but assured to be the Democratic standard-bearer come November, the door has not been wider in decades for an activist Christian left to play an indispensable role in progressive politicsThe political left may not need such a contingent to win this November, but it would be foolish not to embrace one.”

Speaking of God: “Coloring Book is a love letter to God but also to Chicago and the city’s musical culture,” as influenced by Kanye West. That’s Jack Hamilton reviewing the new album/mixtape from Chance the Rapper (who, despite the handle, is more than a rapper, “really an all-purpose vocalist, a killer emcee who also skates in and out of singing, scatting, all manners of vocal play”). Hamilton declares Coloring Book “the first great hip-hop album to successfully channel the centuries-old musical traditions of the black church without anything like pretension or irony.” If you missed last week’s free download, get it on Apple Music.

Steph Curry has a touch of the divine, but his shoes do not, points out John Swansburg in an assessment of the Curry Two, the Under Armour sneakers endorsed by the Golden State Warriors point guard. “Curry’s signature shoe has almost no cultural cachet. Curry Two sightings are rare on the street, where Nike remains dominant; Adidas is fast on the rise; and even marginal players like Asics and Saucony get more affection from the cognoscenti.” Under Armour occupies a very different place in the athleticwear universe than Nike, the company behind Jordans, just as Curry is less edgy, more pious than other players who have hawked sneakers. And even though the Curry Twos may be great for basketball, it’s off-the-court popularity that will establish a legacy that will live on.

(And that’s not Slate’s only piece on sneakers today! Care to read up on the socialist roots of Croatia’s hippest shoe company?)

For fun: The sneakily revolutionary promise of the “mompreneur.”

Shhh, I just ordered some off-brand sneakers,

Heather