Religion in Hip Hop

Mapping the New Terrain in the US

Monica R. Miller, Anthony B. Pinn, Bernard 'Bun B' Freeman, Monica R. Miller, Anthony B. Pinn, Bernard 'Bun B' Freeman

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781472507228
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Sociología de la religión

Now a global and transnational phenomenon, hip hop culture continues to affect and be affected by the institutional, cultural, religious, social, economic and political landscape of American society and beyond. Over the past two decades, numerous disciplines have taken up hip hop culture for its intellectual weight and contributions to the cultural life and self-understanding of the United States. More recently, the academic study of religion has given hip hop culture closer and more critical attention, yet this conversation is often limited to discussions of hip hop and traditional understandings of religion and a methodological hyper-focus on lyrical and textual analyses. Religion in Hip Hop: Mapping the Terrain provides an important step in advancing and mapping this new field of Religion and Hip Hop Studies. The volume features 14 original contributions representative of this new terrain within three sections representing major thematic issues over the past two decades. The Preface is written by one of the most prolific and founding scholars of this area of study, Michael Eric Dyson, and the inclusion of and collaboration with Bernard 'Bun B' Freeman fosters a perspective internal to Hip Hop and encourages conversation between artists and academics.

PART ONE

Hip hop on religion as/for the embodied self

1

Searching for self: Religion and the creative quest for self in the art of Erykah Badu

Margarita Simon Guillory

My name is Erykah Badu. Also known as Medulla Oblongata, also known as Sara Bellum. Some people know me as Analog Girl in a Digital World … I’m Annie, I’m Manuela Maria Mexico, sometimes. She-Ill. That’s who I am. I’m an artist.¹

Music is the 5th element and I’m so happy to be able to use my platform to express myself.²

The opening excerpts, drawn from two interviews with Erykah Badu, depict her specific understanding of how art functions in identity formation. In the first quotation, Badu acknowledges that her multiplicity of personas points to a unified artistic articulation of whom she is as a person. In the second, Badu recognizes music as an outlet, by means of which she can creatively express these various conceptions of herself. This essay explores Badu’s employment of art (in the form of her songs, videos, and album cover graphics) as a creative means to express, and hold in tension, multiple notions of self, presented in this essay as the personal self, collective self, and dynamical self. This analysis of the intersectionality between art, creativity, and self-interpretation, as displayed in Badu’s usage of art, is guided by two tasks. The first considers the religious life of Badu. Here, religion is to be understood as a life “orientation,” or, how Badu conceives of her own significance, whether in relationship to herself or to the external world.³ The first task of this essay, then, is to examine Badu’s religious orientation, which begins with an open espousal of the Five Percenter “way of life” (beginning with her first album, Baduizm) and moves toward a view of religion as art.⁴ It is this understanding of religion and art that allows Badu to create self-significance expressed in the form of multiple views of herself. The second task of this essay treats the work (particularly videos, album cover art, and lyrics) of Badu as a case study, to get a closer look at how this utilization of art expresses a multidimensional notion of selfhood. In particular, this deeper analysis reveals Badu’s dissatisfaction with seeing herself in just one way. She not only wishes to define herself through the maintenance of social solidarity (collective self) or differentiation from others (personal self), but also seeks to articulate an interpretation of self that occurs at the intersection of collectivity and individuality (dynamical self).

The religious evolution of Erykah Badu

In a 2011 interview with Red Bull Music Academy, Badu, in a response to a question about the gutsy moves she took in the production and release of “The Healer,” discusses the essentiality of evolution in taking such a risk. She states:

It’s just what I like and as my taste evolves, as I get introduced to more and more things, I understand more and more things, lyrically, musically, sonically. The whole thing. Taking more chances, evolving. I think that’s the main focus of who I am as an individual person. Evolving is very important to me.⁵

Here, Badu establishes a direct relationship between individuality and evolution. For her, the ability to constantly undergo developmental progression defines who she is as a person. This openness to malleability, then, allows Badu to expand her understanding of “things,” such as the lyrical and vibratory predicates of music. While her commitment to personal progression includes expanding her musical consciousness, this same evolutionary stance also characterizes her understanding of religion. This shift is important, because it shows the various ways in which Badu attempts to locate/orient herself in/toward the external world. And, as the second part of this essay will show, it is with her present artistic understanding of religion (which results from her religious evolution) that allows her to apprehend a sense of significance, which finds expression in multiple self-interpretations. Badu’s religious progression can be traced by examining both her lyrical content (dispersed across six albums) and direct interviews (captured in popular magazines and online venues). What one finds is a religious trajectory that spans from the Nation of Gods and Earths (Five Percenters) to a view of religion as a creative medium.

Between 1997 and 2000, Badu released two studio albums (Baduizm and Mama’s Gun) and one live album (Live). Each of these albums contains nuggets of the Five Percenter way of life. For example, in “On and On” (1997) Badu references the “Divine Science of Supreme Mathematics,” acknowledges the godliness of black men, and establishes an interconnection between the movement of her cipher and the apprehension of knowledge.⁶ Additionally, she utilizes “Ye Yo” (1997), “… & On” (2000), and “Orange Moon” (2000) as canvasses upon which to paint a lyrical picture of the relationship between man and woman, according to the Five Percenter way of life.⁷ Badu speaks of being the moon (i.e., the black woman) from which the sun (i.e., the black man) reflects back light. She captures the relationship between these embodied celestial symbols, and how they are particularly essential in creating a star, that is, a black child, who is the very embodiment of understanding.

Scholars like Felicia M. Miyakawa and Michael Muhammad Knight have briefly considered Badu’s espousal of the Five Percenter way of life, in two of the songs listed above.⁸ They do not, however, recognize the simultaneous presence of another aspect of her religious orientation, nor how she attempts to achieve self-significance. From the beginning of her career, Badu acknowledged the existence of what she calls “the creator.” For example, she begins the live version of her song “Ye Yo” by thanking the creator: “Hey, I like to thank the creator for giving me this gift.”⁹ In this way, Badu recognizes the creator as the originating source of her artistic abilities. While she uses her lyrics to initially introduce this belief, Badu expanded upon this conception of the creator in an interview in 2001. She stated: “Personally, I don’t choose any particular religion [in a strictly institutionalized form] or symbol or group of words or teachings to define me. That’s between me and the most high. You know, my higher self. The Creator.”¹⁰ Badu publicly proclaims her non-commitment to any one institutionalized religious ideology. She goes on to maintain that whatever she chooses as a catalyst to shape her identity is between herself and the creator. She ends by establishing an interconnection between the creator and selfhood. Here, Badu offers a dual conceptualization of the creator. On the one hand, the creator is an externalized force (as expressed in “Ye Yo”), that is responsible for endowing Badu with artistic gifts. On the other hand, however, she views the creator as her higher form of self. So, while she acknowledges the role that an externalized form of the creator plays in negotiating what actually shapes her as a person, as expressed in the previous quote, she simultaneously humanizes this same creator. Badu is the creator. She represents an internal creator that possesses the ability to bring into existence external works of creativity, as displayed in her art. It is important to note that, from 2006 to 2011, Badu begins to bracket the acknowledgment of an external actualization of the creator. Instead, she turns her attention to expanding her conception of the higher self—a view of self that implicitly incorporates Badu’s parallelism between self, which is equal to creator, without explicitly mentioning the “creator.” For example, in a 2011 interview conducted after the release of her latest album, New Amerykah Part Two, Badu discusses her belief in this higher self:

What I believe in whole-heartedly is that people want to be loved and acknowledged and needed. So however they go about getting whatever they need to connect with the higher part of themselves … it’s just what they need. I understand human beings.¹¹

Badu establishes a direct correlation between evolution, selfhood, and human nature. She recognizes that accessing one’s higher self involves the evolutionary progression of the individual and, furthermore, requires a medium. The selected medium is really of no concern to Badu, because, for her, connecting to the higher self is more important than how an individual chooses to get to this destination. Attainment of this higher form of self for Badu represents an apprehension of love, recognition, and belongingness. Even more importantly, Badu recognizes that the resolution of these longings by way of self is an innate human quality.

The centering on inherent qualities of humans, particularly by de-centering an externalized conceptualization of the creator, denotes yet another shift in Badu’s religious orientation. In an unpublished interview conducted in 2010, Badu openly proclaims, “I’m a humanist.”¹² Her comprehension of the human condition, according to Badu, makes her a humanist, for, she “understand[s] human beings.” Badu’s humanist orientation is additionally characterized by an intersectional relationship between human potentiality and human creativity.¹³ For her, humans possess the inherent capacity to create. Specifically, Badu maintains that humans are akin to sculptors in that “they take a lump of clay and just carve away at the clay [until they find] the thing,” or creative product.¹⁴ In this way, Badu once again conceives of herself as the creator. It is this focus on human creativity that shifts her toward a more artistic approach to religion. She briefly introduces this fresh religious stance in 2004, and develops it over the next six years. This gradual progression is captured in several interviews, which Badu granted from 2004 through 2011. For example, in a 2004 Houston Chronicle article, Badu stated, “I don’t practice any particular religion; my religion is my art.”¹⁵ Badu continued to proclaim this religious stance in a 2008 interview with Westword (a Denver-based blog). She proclaims, “I’ve been blessed with so much creativity in every area of my life. My religion is art. Functional art—my clothes. It’s all about presentation. With my food. It’s just something natural in me …”¹⁶ Two years later, Badu used the social media outlet Flickr to proclaim that if she had to chose one religion, then art would be that religion.¹⁷ It is in a 2011 Visions of Visionaries interview, however, that she meticulously unpacks this artistic view of religion, which is worth quoting at length:

I think my religion is probably art. It’s in everything that I do—the way I cook a meal, hair, clothes, conversation, the way I write, the way I text. … Everything comes out of some form of creativity for me. Art is an effortless thing for me. It’s pretty much how they made me, and I embrace that part of me. I was encouraged through my life to express who I am …¹⁸

Taken together, these quotations capture Badu’s artistic conception of religion. She erases categorical distinctions between religion and art. Religion is art and art is religion. Badu meticulously unpacks this artistic notion of religion by establishing an interconnection between art, creativity, and selfhood. She maintains a mediumistic view of art: first, she recognizes art as a transcending medium. Badu believes that individuals can use art as a vehicle to transcend social compartmentalization. She uses her artistic forms to constantly move beyond labels and categories that are placed on her as a musician. Badu uses art, in this way, to gain freedom. The freedom of artistic transcendence, according to her, is a defining predicate for creativity. Secondly, Badu treats art as an expressive medium. Art is, in her words, “how I express my anger, pain, joy or fear, or love.”¹⁹ Badu also laces this emotive usage of art into her lyrics. For example, in My People, she sings about the frustration involved in mentally releasing a past love(r), while in Telephone (a tribute to producer Dilla)²⁰ she candidly shares her existential struggle with suffering and death with listeners. Beyond serving as an emotive outlet, art, for Badu, is also a direct expression of creativity. It is the very medium through which creativity is concretely manifested, in the form of creative products. For Badu, humans naturally embody creativity, so much so that each action, particularly that of the artist, is representative of a creative act aimed at producing a creative product. In this way, Badu maintains that art permeates every human action; it even saturates activities that others may deem mundane. Cooking, combing hair, and writing music are, for Badu, activities that result from the natural ability to create, which dwells within her.

While Badu acknowledges the ability of art to afford opportunities of emotive and creative expressions, art is for her, more importantly, a way to creatively express who she is as an individual. Art allows for the articulation of self, defined here as how an individual views or defines him or herself. An example of Badu’s usage of art as a platform to define herself is captured in a 2013 interview, with Stop Being Famous. Badu is asked to close the session with a poem, and this is what she offers:

I’m a recovering, undercover, over-lover, recovering from a love I can’t get over.

I’m a 20-foot-tall phoenix on the edge of a ten-foot cliff.

In this world of covered wagons, I’m a UFO.

I’m a bumblebee, with airplane wings with a hollow body and a million reasons to soar.

I’m the master of molecules and matter—manipulator of that which is not yet manifested, whether it matters or not.

I’m a warm puddle of concrete.

I’m a cold front happening to your surprise.

I am the deal.²¹

Here, Badu uses poetry as a creative medium to articulate various ways in which she views herself. Badu is a vulnerable human capable of being in a loving relationship with another person. She is a beautiful, mythical creature of immortality whose technological savviness distinguishes her from the other “covered wagons.” Badu is creator: capable of bringing into existence that which is without form or concreteness. She simultaneously exhibits calmness and forcefulness. Badu is indefinite, for, according to her, she is “the deal.” This poem exemplifies her use of art to articulate categorical and trans-categorical notions of self. On the one hand, Badu offers a view of herself that is dependent on relationality with others (e.g., her former lover). On the other hand, she professes a self-definition premised on differentiation (e.g., UFO among wagons) from others. A careful look at the above poem also reveals yet another processual mode of self: she views herself as a process occurring between competing dimensions: a cold force occurring at the interplay of cool and warm air, a gravel puddle coexisting between states of mixture and solidification, and an individual caught between emotional recovery and relapse. This mode of in-betweenness affords Badu the ability to acknowledge but, at the same time, transcend categories of relationality and individuality when defining who she is as a person. To this end, Badu uses art to creatively construct and express multiple modes of selfhood premised on collectivity, individuality and the in-between space of these two categories.

Creating selves: Case study analysis of New Amerykah Part Two (The Re...