Zeal & Ardor and the Echo of Frantz Fanon: Music as Decolonial Revolt

In this solo episode, I dive into the electrifying intersection between Zeal & Ardor’s genre-bending music and Frantz Fanon’s revolutionary psychology of liberation.

I trace the origins of Zeal & Ardor — from Manuel Gagneux’s provocative “what-if” experiment blending slave spirituals and black metal — to their evolution into a powerful exploration of history, rage, and rebirth. Through Fanon’s lens, this fusion becomes more than music: it’s a sonic revolt, a reimagining of how trauma, faith, and resistance can transform into new cultural life.

Along the way, I unpack Fanon’s ideas about the “white mask,” violence as catharsis, and the creation of a new humanism, showing how Zeal & Ardor’s sound captures the psychic energy of decolonization.

This episode is part cultural analysis, part therapy session, and part love letter to the power of art to rework our deepest wounds.