Noise and Spirit

The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music

Anthony B. Pinn

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9780814768303
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Religión

Rap music is often seen as a Black secular response to pressing issues of our time. Yet, like spirituals, the blues, and gospel music, rap has deep connections to African American religious traditions.

Noise and Spirit explores the diverse religious dimensions of rap stemming from Islam (including the Nation of Islam and Five Percent Nation), Rastafarianism, and Humanism, as well as Christianity. The volume examines rap’s dialogue with religious traditions, from the ways in which Islamic rap music is used as a method of religious and political instruction to the uses of both the blues and Black women’s rap for considering the distinction between God and the Devil.

The first section explores rap’s association with more easily recognizable religious traditions and communities such as Christianity and Islam. The next presents discussions of rap and important spiritual considerations, including on the topic of death. The final unit wrestles with ways to theologize about the relationship between the sacred and the profane in rap.

Part I
Rap and Religious Traditions

1
African American Christian Rap
Facing “Truth” and Resisting It

Garth Kasimu Baker-Fletcher

African American Christian rap has not received much critical analysis. One may find many descriptions of the artists—Lil’ Raskull, L. G. Wise, Tru to Society, B. B. Jay, Knowdaverbs, E-Roc, and Tonex (pronounced “Toe-nay”), and so forth—with not so much as a mention of to what religious depth the rappers have plunged. Perhaps this is because music journalists feel that they must simply “report” what they have “seen” and “heard.” The task of the scholar of religion is more telling, and more difficult, because she or he must call upon the resources available to make the best kinds of analytical judgments regarding how African American Christians utilize Christian rap’s structure, message, and musicality within the continuum of contemporary music—in particular, hip-hop culture and African American culture.

Format and Methodology

In this chapter, which is based on the powerful work of historian of religion Charles Long, I examine rap music from two broad angles: first opacity, and then oppugnancy. Opacity is the experience of oppressed persons to live with their contradictory negativity and at the same time transform and create an-other reality¹ Opacity for African Americans, according to Charles Long, meant that Black people faced the fact of their blackness in a white society that promoted itself as being the most free society in the world. In the facing of such “truth” came an amazing capacity to transform the contradiction of freedom in dominant society into life-affirming spiritual health. Oppugnancy, or creative forms of resistance to the embedded forms of oppression in society, occurred in slave society, according to Long, along several levels. These included the conversion experience itself, through which the power of an Almighty God intervened into the very historical modality of individual religious consciousness itself.² Although they are beyond the scope of this study, many excellent analyses of slave narratives and slave conversion experiences are readily available.³ It must also be historically underlined that two of the most significant slave uprisings, or to use Long’s rhetoric, events of oppugnancy, occurred under the leadership of men who had a religious following—Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey.

I use the two scales of judgment above, oppugnancy and opacity, to delineate the parameters of this chapter’s analyses concerning Christian rap music. Other parameters could have been how “evangelical” or “evangelizing” Christian rap’s lyrics might be (an earlier temptation that crossed my mind, to be sure!); or, another parameter might be to ignore the “evangelical” aspects of Christian rap’s message, searching instead for its sociopolitical or sociocultural critiques. Further, in this chapter I reject looking at Black Christian rap as another manifestation of what is taken to be a tendency of religiously oppressed peoples to use religion as a psychological “opiate” (the view most forcefully articulated by Karl Marx). I reject this “explanation” of or reductionist view of religion in general because such “explanations” ultimately lead to a denigration of any religious experiences, a priori or a fortiori. Rather, I shall look at the ways in which the Christian message is expressed in rap music through the polarities of oppugnancy and/or opacity using religious symbolism and language. This is a difficult task but a necessary one. So doing, we tease out symbolic meanings (of Christian religious meaning) that lie directly in the hearer’s grasp, rather than possible inferences that might miss the mark entirely.

“Homies,” “Da World,” and “Da Streetz” for Christian Rappers

The three categories of “homies,” “da world,” and “da streetz” encompass a critical space of spiritual critique for African American Christian rappers. Broadly speaking, Christian rap sets about its task of proclaiming the saving message (or “Gospel”) of Jesus Christ within the space inhabited by “homies” who live in “da world” on “da streetz.” In this sense, all of these are categories of both opacity and oppugnancy.

“Homies” are people, usually but not exclusively male, with whom one has grown into maturity, lived in the same “‘hood” (neighborhood), and had an affinity of interests on da streetz. Several of the most successful Christian rappers such as L. G. Wise and Lil’ Raskull base their lyrics on testimonials which proclaim their former lives before they had a living and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. What is interesting is that they still see themselves as homies, but as homies transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As transformed homies their current mission is to “save” the souls of other homies so that they might also join the new family of “homey Christians” who are moving toward a glorious future in heaven. Lil’ Raskull’s “Wonder Years”⁴ provides an excellent window into how a Christian rapper exposes the world of homies and how they are trying to live successfully on da streetz without Jesus guiding them. In one section he cries out that there are too many “homies” loving material things and the “money they’ve got,” while the women in their lives are selling their bodies for the same. The “world” Lil’ Raskull describes is not the racist one of Jim Crow segregation, but one of the post-civil rights era. It is a “world” of poor, urban youth whose search for respect and love draws them out into the streets—”da streetz”—of the ghetto. The predators, evildoers, and torturers of “da streetz” are not described as “the Man” (white men or white people) but other Black men from other ‘hoods, interested in “busting a cap” (shooting) into your body.

For Christian rapper E-Roc, “da world” is a place filled with the spirit of Hannibal Lecter, as he notes in his song “Modern Day Cannibals.”⁵ Lecter, made known through two blockbuster Hollywood movie hits, is perhaps one of the most noxious human beings to have ever hit the screen. A notorious cannibal, Hannibal was known to keep the carved-out body parts of his victims and save them in his refrigerator for months, drawing a strange sense of “comfort” and “warmth” from their presence. Hannibal was known to have sautéd the organs in butter, particularly the liver, his favorite organ. E-Roc’s lyrics decry the world as being filled with “modern-day cannibals,” eating us like Hannibal. The sense of overwhelming, uncontrollable lust for eating the very flesh and body of women and men in the ‘hood is realized by the scourges of drug trade and its concurrent usage of heavy gunfire, and prostitution of women with its corrosive deleterious pimping by men. The “modern-day cannibal” E-Roc warns against is not just someone or something outside of himself or a “them,” but the possibility of corrupting hypocrisy within himself and other Christian rappers (read other Christian ministers/Christians). This corrupting hypocrisy “eats” one’s heart and soul, according to E-Roc, and the result is that one’s behavior embarrasses “your crew” or the group of people who depend upon the upright steadiness and righteousness of your walk with God. Further, “modern day cannibals” are those afflicted with a soul-sickness that leaves them prone to mocking Jesus. In another reference to a Hollywood blockbuster film—the Star Wars hero Anakin Skywalker who eventually becomes corrupted into the infamous intergalactic villain Darth Vader—E-Roc warns that the “cannibal” tendency can turn a good person into one representing evil.⁶

E-Roc has a tremendously imaginative way of using even traditional biblical imagery in new ways. In another song he uses the image of the “Devourer”—borrowed from the Angel of Death found in Exodus 12—as the spirit of death plaguing the African American community. He notes in his song that the Devourer seeks to “eat” and “destroy” all those who fail to come to “hear” and “decide” to “follow Christ, for He is the only way to come out of the world.” He compares this capacity of the Devourer to “Megaton Bombs,” whose destructive capacity is unmatched in human imagination.⁷ This profession of Christian faith, however narrow and prejudicial it might sound to the ears of those who practice other beliefs, seems to satisfy E-Roc’s sense of theodicy and divine fairness. We shall return to questions of theodicy later.

B. B. Jay refers to “da world” as a place of emotional pain. Earlier in his life, as he testifies at the very beginning of his CD Universal Concussion, he was the “punch line” to everybody else’s jokes, the butt of their teasing remarks.⁸ He has nothing good to say about what da world had to offer him, or anyone else, for that matter. Furthermore, B. B. Jay insists that his Christian rap is his way of expressing how he was slapped around, put down, and how eventually he learned to survive with the hope that someday he might “blow up” (“become a success”). Lil’ Raskull, E-Roc, and L. G. Wise⁹ all agree that da streetz and da world are the loci of pain, seduction, and misplaced desires for their homies. They all testify that da streetz serve as places where quick money could be obtained through drug trafficking, the traffic of bodies (usually female), and the so-called defense of these transactions with automatic guns. Such behavior, note the Christian rappers, leads to the pain of a life in and out (and in again) of prison. Both Lil’ Raskull and L. G. Wise pepper most of their songs with references to, and supportive commentary for, the homies who are locked up behind the bars in prison.

Sometimes young male Christian rappers, like their secular rap counterparts, use the term “hoochies” as a term of derision for a woman who sells her body for money, or a prostitute. Lil’ Raskull uses this term in “Wonder Years” as a counterterm to his derision of the materialism of homies on da streetz. He decries women selling sexual favors, saying that it is “treating yo’ body like scotch.”¹⁰ A problem occurs as we analyze whether or not one can speak of prostitutes as being “materialistic” in the same way as homies who rely on their vast treasures of money. Those who utilize even a gentle feminist/womanist critique do not find enough intellectual “space” placed by Lil’ Raskull between the two phrases.

Fortunately, Christian rappers never refer to female “homies” as “hoes.” African American Christian rappers also never refer to women using other extremely derogatory words frequently used by secular rappers. There is, in fact, quite a large difference between the care L. G. Wise’s “Ain’t Gotta Be Like Dat” shows toward young women caught up in the sexual industry and the fixated, stunted, and truncated name calling that secular rappers regularly refer to when addressing women. “Ain’t Gotta Be Like Dat” is a story-rap L. G. Wise “spits” (the slang word for “really telling a story with emphasis”). He picks up a young teenage female friend to drive her to wherever she would like to go. Wise is shocked to find out that the young lady is going to “work” as a stripper in the local erotic dance joint. He tells her “ain’t gotta be like dat” over and over again, reminding her that the true love that she seems to be seeking can only be found in a living relationship with Jesus Christ.¹¹ The musical background Wise uses reinforces his message of potent rebuke because its bass line, keyboards, and drumming all overlay each other as one. This overlaying of musical, rhythmic, and harmonic levels reinforces for the listener the importance of the message.

Male Christian rappers like B. B. Jay go beyond rebuking “worldly” and sinful acts by women, finding ways to uplift the plight of female “homies” caught up in the ways of da world without insulting them. B. B. Jay’s song, “For the Ladies,” extols every woman as a “diamond” whose strength is greater than any male’s, even though she is considered as the “weaker vessel” biblically.¹² B. B. Jay goes on to note that a “lady” is one who stands by her homey as the police wagon hauls him away, coming through with the bail, even if it is “four in the morning.” As such, this woman, this “lady,” is “unique.” Every woman, according to B. B. Jay, is unique in the world, however abused. The overwhelming sentiment presented in the song is that men need to start treating women as the queens they are. Furthermore, B. B. Jay makes sure that all the generations are mentioned—grandmothers, sisters, aunts, mothers, and so forth. Finally, he exhorts the women of the ‘hood to meditate on Jesus to alleviate the ills of their lives and overcome hardships, transforming them into blessings.

Is such commentary noteworthy for its resistance (oppugnancy) or its transformative facing of otherness (opacity)? If we are careful to note what is going on in the lyrics as well as in the forcefulness of the rhythmic presentations and music, I believe that we can come up with answers. For example, B. B. Jay’s “For the Ladies” presents a message of hope and uplift to the female homies of poor African communities (in particular). His musical backbeat is not “male” in the sense that it rocks with a machismo heaviness that overwhelms the lyrics, but has a kind of (dare I say) “soft” and rolling “pop” sound more in character with popular female groups like Destiny’s Child or Trin-i-tee 5:7. Such a presentation itself transforms and transgresses expected boundaries and moves the listener toward an openness that would not occur had B. B. Jay used another musical presentation.

The message of “For the Ladies” is a mixture of both Black Power ideology (treat Black women like Queens) and biblical knowledge (women are the weaker vessel that serves and cares for family and community). This combination is unstable and tricky, to say the least, but B. B. Jay, like many African American males in the church, believes that it is a necessary combination. The strength of the combination is that a Queen is undoubtedly a leader, a force to be reckoned with, and a visionary in the community. Unfortunately, queens in Western culture...