Call for Essays-Hip Hop Spirituality

If you are interested in submitting a chapter for this book, tentatively titled, "Hip Hop Spirituality and Urban God Talk," please send me a response before the deadline.


As framed and constructed by the media and even some practitioners, hip hop culture is considered a hyper-violent, misogynistic, and materialistic culture devoid of anything holy, sacred and good. Indeed, many spiritual leaders of all faiths indict the entire culture of hip hop and promote it as the work of the devil (or Evil One). However, we suggest that a different reading of hip hop culture will allow one to discover a profound; yet diverse spirituality emanating throughout the culture. While not orthodox by typical religious standards and traditions, hip hop culture, like any other culture, finds hope, joy, comfort, relief, and understanding, through the practice(s) of its worship and spirituality.

Therefore, I am interested in compiling and editing a book of original essays on hip hop's spirituality. Essayists in this volume hope not only to contribute to the lack of scholarship that focuses on hip hop's spirituality, but we are also interested in examining how discourses concerning hip hop could change if a reading of hip hop included its spirituality and theological outlook. In addition, we hope this book begins an interdisciplinary dialogue that provides a rigorous, creative, and critical examination that encourages others to take up this exciting field of study. Scholars in all disciplines are encouraged to submit.

Please submit a 300-500 word proposal and CV to me at aejohnson762@bellsouth.net by February 28, 2011.

Newly Discovered Artists

I have been a Christ follower for at least 16 years. For those who are mathematically challenged, that means that in 1994 I had an important conversion experience where Jesus became Lord of my life. so in my world of new Christian music, I was influenced by the likes of dc Talk and Audio Adrenaline. The most diverse influence that I heard was a group called Out of Eden. Prior to this point, I had been a radio junkie. I focused mostly on the classic rock genre where Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones ruled the airwaves. But my sudden conversion was due in large part to my new love for Christian Rock. So secular radio was out. little did I know what amazing secular artists were beginning to emerge.
One of those amazing new artists was Lauryn Hill. As I have researched the life and work of Ms. Hill I have been exposed to the transformation of a soul. From early on Hill was identified as a "natural performer". Her raspy voice and musicianship was impressive, even as a child. But what became even more impressive was her determination to share her faith and scripture among the pop world's most influential venues. In particular, MTV Unplugged began a series of shows in 2002. Hill was featured in the second of the series. It was in this session that she performed an acoustic set where she accompanied herself on guitar. This concert was her presentation of the Gospel.
Throughout this concert, Hill presented the message of freedom and the lies of the Enemy. She warns against deception and demonstrates an affinity for Liberation Theology. I have been impressed with her boldness to proclaim the message of Christ in a place where so many are afraid of the repercussions. Her commitment to share her faith may indeed have cost her career. Since that time in 2002, not much has been heard from Hill. there have been concerts here and there, but nothing major. My prayer is that Ms. Hill will find her music again and become a force in Hip Hop again. her message is one that needs to be heard.

What’s Taking Us So Long: An Examination of the Scholarship of Hip-Hop in African American Religious Studies

*A Paper Given at the National Council of Black Studies on March 18, 2010 in New Orleans, Louisiana

by Andre E. Johnson, PhD
ajohnson@memphisseminary.edu
Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Religion and African American Studies at Memphis Theological Seminary

Introduction

Since coming on the scene from the dilapidated and decaying streets of New York, Hip Hop has been a powerful phenomenon. Whether one is inclined to see hip hop as a positive or negative influence, the culture has captured the minds and hearts of millions around the world. While many thought hip hop to be a fad, many culture critics caught hold of this phenomenon early on and began to chronicle the new sub-culture. In 1985, Nelson George produced Fresh, Hip Hop Don’t Stop, a book that contained nearly a hundred photographs that celebrated hip hop and its culture. Following George’s book, many magazines, newspapers and other popular media forums focused attention on hip hop, while the academy remained loathe to the study of hip hop.
However, in 1994 the academy’s official dis of hip hop would end with Tricia Rose’s seminal work, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. After her work, some in the academy, no longer caught up in philosophical arguments and debates about whether the academy if the proper forum for the study of hip hop, begin to produce innovative scholarship and begin to start a new filed of study. Led by “New Jack Cultural Studies scholars, such as Rose, Russell Potter, Michael Eric Dyson and others, hip hop found its way into the halls of academia and after a tenuous start at best, it has now found a home in many of our academic journals and other publications. While it would have been a major deal to find someone in any department teaching a hip hop course of any kind, one can now find many hip hop course offerings on many college and university campuses housed in several disciplines.
However, while other disciplines have made peace with hip hop, we cannot say the same about religious studies. Religious studies as a discipline is still hesitant about engaging hip hop and while there are many reasons for this apprehension, one of the main reasons I believe is how hip hop is currently constructed. As framed and constructed by the media and even some practitioners, hip hop is considered a hyper-violent, misogynistic, materialistic and, a so called heathenistic culture devoid of anything holy, sacred and good. Indeed, many spiritual leaders of all faiths indict the entire culture of hip-hop and promote it as the work of the devil (or Evil One). Therefore, there is no reason to engage hip hop because the culture is devoid of anything good. It is this belief that limits research from religious studies scholars.
While it is not surprising to find within the field of Religious Studies this response, it is quite another to find it within the field of African American Religious Studies. African American Religious Studies got its start along side the Black Studies movement in the late 1960’s. Like its secular and at times volatile cousin, Black Religious Studies challenged status quo, reinterpreted theoretical presuppositions, and offered new and exciting theories of its own. The foreparents of the movement maintained that Blacks viewed God and religion entirely different from whites and saw to ground much of the Black religious traditions in Africa instead of Europe. Scholars such as James Cone, Gayraud Wilmore, Delores Williams, Jacquelyn Grant and a host of others, along with many students, stood up to entrenched power structures at seminaries and divinity schools to usher in new ideas and new ways of thinking.
However, as hip hop begin to matriculate and develop, many in the African American religious community turned the proverbial deaf ear and a blind eye towards the culture. During hip hop’s rise in the late 80’s and 90’s, many scholars within African American religious studies rejected hip hop as a definitive voice of many who found themselves on the margins, trapped by the sweeping tide of conservative policies that left many urban areas more desolate. While many Black religious studies scholars showed empathy and sympathy for Black Power advocates a generation before, these same scholars dismissed hip hop as one of the authentic voices in Black America. Black theologians could not understand the pain and anger found in gangsta rap and womanist theorists saw hip hop’s misogyny as not only repugnant and hateful to women but to the Black community as a whole.

This narrative—that hip hop offers nothing in the way of religion and thus unworthy of study from Religious Studies scholars permeates throughout the discipline even today. However, this could be further from the truth. From its beginning, I suggest that hip hop has a profound spirituality and advocates religious views—and while not orthodox or systemic in anyway, nevertheless, many in traditional orthodox religions would find the theological underpinnings in hip hop comforting, empowering, and liberating.

In the rest of this paper, I offer a brief literature review of scholarship within African American religious studies and offer some suggestions as to the direction religious studies scholars need to head to establish this field.

Literature Review

While other disciplines were opening the doors to hip hop scholarship, Black Religious Studies came late to the party. One of the first books published that spoke on hip hop and religion of any kind was Anthony Pinn’s Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music. Published in 2003, this edited volume, while focusing on rap music, nevertheless opened the door to hip hop’s spiritual side. The essays collected in this volume, from well noted African American Religious Studies scholars such as Garth Baker-Fletcher, Juan Floyd-Thomas, and Ralph Watkins, demonstrated that hip hop has much more in common with the African American religious tradition than many previously thought. In addition, by not just focusing on Christianity, with this volume, Pinn also demonstrated the connections hip hop and the African American religious tradition has in common with other religions. The African American religious tradition has always been much bigger than Christianity and by using hip hop as the vehicle; Pinn helps us to see this reality.

The next book published was Five Percenter Rap, by Felecia Miyawaka in 2005. Her insightful work focused on the religious themes developed and found in the work of the five percenter nation. Though not written by a religious scholar, Miyawaka offers a deft account of the spirituality and theology of the five percent nation from interviews and an analysis of their texts. Her works demonstrates that while rapping and performing within a secular context, groups such as Poor Righteous Teachers, Rakim, Wu-Tang Clan and Erika Baydu, spoke from a well of spiritual insight and knowledge.

The next book published in 2005 was James Perkinson’s Shamanism Racism and Hip Hop culture. While the first two books focused entirely on the element of rap music, Perkinson is the first within religious studies to center his analysis on hip hop culture. In this collection of essays, Perkinson become one of the first to theorize hip hop culture spiritually. By way of personal narrative and testimony, Perkinson argued that the spiritual flavor of hip hop can position itself as a response to racism and by way of shamanism, again, part of the African and African American religious tradition, can begin to strengthen communities.

After these books and several other articles published in both academic and popular journals and magazines, the Black Church woke up to the fact that after 30 plus years, hip hop was not going away anytime soon. Recently, there has been a slew of books published that necessarily do not focused on the spirituality of hip hop and what it means, but on how the church can relate to hip hop culture. In short, these books focus on evangelism and how can the church be more proactive in understanding the culture. Books such as the Hip Hop Church, Disciples of the Street, Timothy Holder’s The Hip Hop Prayer Book, and the aforementioned Watkins, Connecting with the Hip Hop Generation are part of this genre.

New Directions and Conclusion

While one can see there is still much more to do in this field, I am glad to report that newly minted Ph.D.’s, other scholars awaiting defense dates, and some awaiting acceptance into doctoral programs, are beginning the work. To my knowledge, I taught the first hip hop class in the country at any accredited seminary or divinity school at Memphis Theological Seminary. Since that time in 2005, while there is not a plethora of courses offered at seminary and divinity schools, there has been an upsurge in conferences, workshops, and weekend class offerings that discuss hip hop theology/spirituality.

I have also attended the National Communication Association and the American Academy of Religion conferences along with this one and others to present papers on hip hop’s spirituality. While there, I have met with several scholars who would want to do this work but are not sure of what direction they need to take. Therefore, where do we go from here? Well, I suggest three major areas.

First, work must examine hip hop spirituality and theology. We must go beyond rap music or textual examples, we must begin to examine clothes, dance, and in short, the entire hip hop performance. This could also lead to the reappearance of early hip hop elements such as break dancing and graffiti.

Second, we should welcome multiple methodologies in doing this work. Hip hop is the ultimate interdisciplinary phenomenon, taking us into music, communications, culture studies, black studies, anthropology and several others. All of those disciplines have methods appropriate to its field. We should welcome them to examine the spirituality hip hop. However, as I mentioned at the top of the paper, hip hop is enjoying major attention and some are considering hip hop studies as its own field. If this is the case, then methods would be developed and thus used in examining hip hop religious centering as well.

Lastly, we should keep on writing. While many still are not on board as of yet, we should continue to speak. I believe hip hop’s religious sensibilities have much to offer to the public as well as the academy. For example, just in my own research of those sensibilities, hip hop’s God is much bigger than many of the god’s of our own religion. This God is more inclusive, more tolerant and more understanding than the god that society seemed to construct for itself. This god goes by several names and cannot be located into one position. This god understands the struggle, the pain and the game that one has to play in order to survive. I wonder how these and other theological presuppositions would work in the broader public as a rhetorical or public theology. It would be great to find out and the only way we will get there is if we keep doing the work and supporting one another.

Hip Hop Inclusivity

Inclusion has become one of the hot topics in many churches today. What makes a church spiritually empowered is when church leaders expand outside the box and bring diversity into church culture. Hip hop genres should be included into some of our churches activity to reach generations right where they are in their lives. As a church we cater to all facets, but when it comes down to embracing the younger generation , we shy away from those outlets to help them. Our God is a God of inclusivity, which suggests that God doesn't discriminate in ministry work and or in people in doing ministry work. With that being said, why are there so many churches turning a deaf ear to such an immediate need in our churches? Is the Hip Hop inclusion, too, funky and radical in church culture today, which causes this deaf ear to many churches? Help the church to open their deaf ears by elaborating on this topic of Hip Hop inclusivity.

The Hip Hop Pastor

What kind of pastor should be the leader of his/her congregation? Will he/she be the one to embrace all facets of their congregation? If so, then why is the pastor discouraged to welcome in the hip hop culture that seems to be rapidly surfacing in the church? In Ralph C. Watkins' book, The Gospel Remix, Jamal-Harrison Bryant suggests that the church should be of all places a launching tool for the hip hop expression since the church is said to be vocal for spiritual practices, symbolism of justice, and congregation of diverse believers (p.90). Bryant's statement can be proven to be true due to the fact that the Bible sets the ambiance for our Christian ministries. You can find churches engaging in different styles of praise and worship experiences, fighting peaceful movements over racism, poverty, blight, war on drugs, etc. The church is a melting pot for all ages, generations, ethnicities, and denominations. Therefore, the pastor should take on the traits of his/ her congregation. As a pastor, one of the major factions the church should do evangelism is in the area of our younger generation because they are the future of the church. How can the pastor be a friend to the hip hop phenomenal and cling to a more radical style of worship/ culture?

The Crucible and the Response

The crucible of life always requires response. Sometimes our responses validate or represent God, and other times they do not. But whatever our situation, there is always the response. For those who are oppressed, the responses are more limited because of reduced resources or fear of retribution. For those who suffer from disease, the response can be either God-honoring or not so God-honoring.

When I look at the birth of Hip Hop, I see a response to life in the Bronx in the 1970's. The response was born out of destroyed neighborhoods, a destroyed infrastructure, and fear. Fear for the long term well-being of the family but also the well-being of myself...NOW. Hip Hop's inception was a response to the desire to avoid violence in the Bronx and take the street competition from the "rumble" the dance floor. The Bronx Crucible demanded the response of Hip Hop.

Only God's timing and hand will determine whether the Hip Hop response to the 1970's Bronx crucible will honor God or not. But as we watch God's plan unfold, should we simply sit and watch or engage in the discussion? do we leave the Hip Hop discussion to the secular world? What will our response be? As I ask the question, I also wonder what my children and their children will see in our response. Will our response to Hip Hop honor God or not? Some things of God are difficult to understand, but I am sure that God does not sit on the sidelines and turn a deaf ear. God is engaged, because redemption is real.

Let us be a people of redemption who aren't afraid to engage Hip Hop. And may our response honor God.

When Hip Hop Went to the Church

I've had a strange relationship with the music I create and perform. I don't actually like addressing it directly. I sort of address it within the lyrics from time to time.

You see I came in the double doors of Hip Hop and gospel music. What a strange entrance. Traditionally one of the doors should be marked entrance and the other exit since it seems you can't do both at the same time. I don't subscribe to terms such as "holy hip hop" (because I think that is corny and something Robin from the old Batman series would say as in "Holy Hip Batman, to the Bat mobile!) and I don't subscribe to the definitions "christian hip hop" and "christian rap" because I think the word Christian is a bad adjective and a better noun. Even the term "gospel rap" just doesn't totally feel authentic to me. If you subscribe to any of these terms please don't shoot me, I'm not dissing anyone else for doing so. It's just a personal thing to me. Don't mind me with my personal opinions! Lol.
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