Psalm 23 and Coolio

Odd juxtaposition - last week there was an article by James Wood in the New Yorker about Robert Alter's new translation of Psalms, with some interesting discussion of the famous 23rd. And this weekend Mrs. R. and I watched an episode of _Angel_ in which there's a snippet of the powerful "Gangster's Paradise" by Coolio (excellent video here). The song starts with the opening line of the 23rd Psalm, but except for the mordant "paradise" (and possibly something of gospel in the mournful chorus), God is conspicuously absent.