religion and hip-hop: encounters

5/24/2018 Religion and hip-hop: encounters

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ISP: Religion and hip-hop: Encounters Samuel Murray 258134

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Religion and hip-hop: Encounters

In 1977, just months after looting had broken out in New Yorks poorest suburbs

during a substantial power cut, President Jimmy Carters motorcade passed

through the South Bronx to survey the damage of the last five years(Rose

1994:33). The national media quickly dubbed this disadvantaged area of New

York a symbol of Americas woes(ibid.). For many, both insiders and outsiders,

the South Bronx represented a lawless and stagnant wasteland thanks, largely, to

the development of the Cross-Bronx Expressway that ripped through the

community during the 1960s and 70s. Marshall Berman describes the fate of

area: Thus depopulated, economically depleted, emotionally shattered, the

Bronx was ripe for all the dreaded spirals of urban blight.(Berman 1982:290)

What no oneleast of all Carter and the popular presscould have realised at

the time was that 1970s South Bronx was soon to become enshrined within

countless narratives as the birthplace of a cultural movement that would change

the face of Black expression around the world.

Even before Carters visit, the youth of the South Bronx were hard at work

refashioning what it meant to come from the area. Frustrated by being

represented as the embodiment of all that was wrong with America, they started

to express themselves in a variety of novel ways that, together, are now known

as hip-hop. Hiphoppasformed into crews or posses through which they

articulated their hip-hop identity by performing as emcees (rapping), deejays, b-

boys and b-girls (break-dancers) and graffiti artists. The young, poor and

predominantly Black residents of the South Bronx were redefining both their


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neighbourhood and themselves as African Americans in a post-civil rights era;

the streets were no longer a site of destruction but a source of creativity.

Decades later, hip-hop looks very different. What began in parks and

street corners has moved into arenas, festivals and clubs, ubiquitously onto

television and into shops as clothing fashion. Hip-hop has exchanged local

particularity for global popularity and, in the process, the scope of hip-hop has

expanded massively. The specificity of hip-hop identity has grown to span socio-

economic divides, with some hiphoppas living in inner-city housing projects

like they did in the seventies and eighties, and others living in mansions on the

hills around Los Angeles or in Manhattan penthouses, travelling between them

by private jet.

None of this would have been possible had hip-hop not entered the

marketplace. In 1979, The Sugarhill Gangs Rappers Delight was released by

Sugarhill Records, a record company whose owner aimed to capitalise on what

she saw as a potentially lucrative musical trend (Jennings 2003:9). Many were

introduced to hip-hop culture by this song (ibid.8) but what few realised was

that hip-hops venture into the consciousness of the masses created a dilemma.

David Toop describes the reaction of the hip-hop community to Rappers

Delight as a contradictory mixture of resentment and a desire to get in on the

action (2000:16). Hip-hop had been bottled and sold, and this presented

hiphoppas with a problem: shaping hip-hop culture and the constitution of a hip-

hop identity was no longer just the concern of hiphoppas themselves; those who

positioned themselves outside of hip-hop culture also wanted a stake. Ever since,

hip-hop has been the site of a complex conflict of interests, a battlefield in a

struggle for self-representation.


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This essay aims to examine how religion and hip-hop interact. Religion

as a descriptive category and as networks of institutions, beliefs and practices

that are deemed to fall within that categoryhas found its identities expressed

through the medium of hip-hop, but only more recently has this been reversed,

with religious concepts forming the means through which hip-hop identities are

conveyed. The most extreme example of this is renowned hip-hop artist KRS-

Ones 2009 publication The Gospel of Hip Hopin which he frames hip-hop as

being a religion in its own right. HIP HOP IS THE PROMISED LAND, he

proclaims. (2009:46, 47, 48). Other works take a more nuanced approach, such

as Wu-Tang Clan member Rzas book The Tao of Wu(2009) or Ralph Basui

Watkins Hip-Hop Redemption(2011).

It is my claim that encounters between hip-hop and religion such as these

can be understood as being part of two larger struggles. One is fought between

hiphoppas and external commercial agents that have incongruous interests. Both

groups wish to stake financial and epistemological claims over hip-hop. Here,

religious discourses function to assign a kind of ultimate authority to hip-hop,

not just because God is brought into the discussion but also because of the

institutional power that organised religion holds in America in particular. The

other struggle is the result of hip-hops socio-historical context. In the post-civil

rights era, racially discriminatory structures continued to dictate the lives of

African Americans but the religious institutions that had provided a space to

destabilise racial inequality prior to the emergence of hip-hop were becoming

more and more irrelevant to poor, black inner-city residents (Hutchinson

2012:15). Hip-hop provided a way for young African-Americans to fill the space


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left by religious institutions, and this is demonstrated by the religious ideas that

are present in hip-hop.

To argue this claim, the essay is structured as follows: in the first section, I

explore the various ways in which religion and hip-hop have confronted and

employed one another in the discourse of publications and academia, as well as

song lyrics and interviews. Following this is an examination of the development

of hip-hop culture and the context in which hip-hop has evolved, tracing the

social relations with which it is bound up and following its transformation into a

lucrative investment opportunity that has lead to the stakes becoming ever

higher for those whose identities are defined in terms of hip-hop. Finally, I draw

out some of the wider implications that this investigation has for our

understandings of identity and the Study of Religions in general.

Identities and encounters

The Study of Religions is an inter-disciplinary field of scholarship that takes a

multi-disciplinary approach (Connolly 1999:7). This means that although it can

be seen historically as being derived from theology (Alles 2010:39), there are no

formally or informally defined approaches and methods that have developed

within, or are unique to, the field of study. This is due, in part, to the fact that

religionis a particularly aporetic category, the coordinates of which have been

mapped in a wide variety of ways. As such, works that locate religion as their

object of study have borrowed their methodologies from many other disciplines,

resulting in anthropological, historical, psychological, sociological and

philosophical approaches to the Study of Religion, to name just a few. This has

also meant that studies of religion are regularly combined with other subjects.


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Rather than just examining a religion, they study an aspect of a religion or its

relationship with non-religiousphenomena; for example, there may be studies

on The Politics of Catholicism, A History of Shia Islam, or Art in Shan

Buddhism.

The emergence of hip-hop in scholarship is far more recent, but there are

some similarities with the Study of Religion in the way that it fits into the

academy. Again, there is no set methodology and hip-hop is not often studied as

a sui generisphenomenon. It can be found in disciplines and fields such as,

Cultural Studies, History and Music, taught in a steadily expanding range of

degree courses (Hip Hop Archive n.d.).

However, despite both fields of study being structured in such a way that

would invite the two to cross paths, there is relatively little in the way of

scholarship on hip-hop and religion. What does exist is a handful of journal

articles and a few publications such as the collection of essays entitled Noise and

Spirit(2003), whose editor, Anthony Pinn, also began teaching a course on

Religion and Hip Hop in 2011 with rapper BunB at Rice University, Texas.

Although these resources provide some very useful insight into encounters

between religion and hip-hop, none provide a thorough analysis in which

contemporary issues around identity formation are taken into consideration. In

the small amount that is written so far, either religious identities, hip-hop

identities or both are conceptualised as being a priori to the discussion. Although

interesting observations can be made in this way, such as Juan Floyd-Thomass

considerations of the way that American Islam has evolved through its

expression in hip-hop (2003:66), or James Perkinsons reflections on hip-hops


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relationship with notions of death (2003:148-149), much can be missed by

conceptualising these identities as fixed.

Identity has become a major focus for study in recent times, but this is

largely because it has been subjected to deconstructive critiques (ibid.1). We can

no longer speak of identities as if they are solid, concrete objects that exist out of

historical and social context, but at the same time identities are still crucial in

determining our realities (ibid.). In order for individuals to act or for groups to

act collectively, they must first form a stable notion of who they are, and this is

why identity is an important conceptual category of analysis. While identities

constitute points of temporary attachment to the subject positions which

discursive practices construct for us (Hall 1996:6) they only exist in and of their

articulation and performance, which makes identity a mode of doing rather

than being (Butler 1990:25). From this perspective, it becomes both possible

and necessary to understand what is at stake when identities are articulated in

particular ways, by examining performances and knowledge formations that are

tied up with them.

Broadly speaking, when considering encounters between religion and

hip-hop, two trends can be observed. In some instances, hip-hop provides the

structure within which religious identities are articulated; hip-hop sets the stage

for religious performance. In other cases, this is the other way around and hip-

hop is, as Erykah Badu says in The Healer, bigger than religion (2008). Here,

religious notions and ideas form the platform upon which hip-hop identities may

be enunciated.

Religious identities on the hip-hop stage


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For the religiously adherent, hip-hop culture provides very fertile ground on

which to express their religious beliefs and reflections. Probably the most

obvious way in which this is done through is a simple proclamation of faith. In

his song Jesus Walks, Kanye West says, God show me the way because the Devil

trying to break me down against a repetitively sungalmost chantedhook,

Jesuswalks, Jesus walks with me (West 2004). Lupe Fiasco begins his album

Food & Liquorby reciting a Muslim prayer in Arabic that translates roughly as I

seek refuge with Allah from Satan the rejected, in the name of Allah the most

gracious, ever merciful (Lupe Fiasco 2006: Intro). Others use their creative

space to criticize religious belief. Jay-Z takes a shot at Christian salvation when

he raps, Jesus cant save you, life starts when the church ends (Jay-Z and Keys

2009: Empire State of Mind), while Nas refers to Jesus as the Nazareth savage

(Nas 2004: Nazareth Savage).

However, religious concepts are often explored in greater detail by

hiphoppas, especially when hip-hop is overtly adopted as a tool for articulating

religious faith to become what Omoniyi calls holy hip-hop (2010:205). In Noise

and Spirit, Baker-Fletcher explores African American Christian Rap. Therein, he

finds that Christian hip-hop artists such as Lil Raskell, Knowdaverbs and E-Roc

largely aim to represent the truth of the Gospel, and they do this in three ways:

1) as a redemptive alternative to the evils of life on da streetz; 2) as a force that

has the power to unify those who feud across ethnic and cultural lines; and 3) as

a path to individual salvation through Jesus (Baker-Fletcher 2003:44-45). On

each of these levels, hip-hop practices and themes are adopted and moulded by

Christian belief. In this way, it can be seen that this holy hip-hopapproach


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treats hip-hop as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself (Omoniyi

2010:214).

It is not only Christians who have used hip-hop for larger religious

objectives; other beliefs also find their expression. The Nation Of Islam (NOI) is

particularly popular amongst hiphoppas because of the role it played in the

African American Civil Rights movement and because it was once lead by

Malcolm X, a figure who is endowed with legendary status among many African

Americans. Public Enemy are particularly renowned for their references to NOI

doctrines and rhetoric (Floyd-Thomas 2003:51) and can be heard paying

homage to its founder in Party for Your Right to Fight (Public Enemy 1988). The

group are generally considered to be one of the most politically outspoken hip-

hop acts of their time and the torchbearers for Malcolm Xs legacy in their post-

civil rights context (Floyd-Thomas 2003:51-52). Along with others such as De La

Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and Ice Cube, Public Enemy promoted a kind of Black

Nationalism and Afrocentrism that was advanced by NOI.

In the 1960s, a student of Malcolm X called Clarence X broke away from

NOI on theological grounds and formed a new organisation called The Nation of

Gods and Earths, or more commonly know as the Five Percenters. This

organisation is also particularly popular among hiphoppas. They believe that 85

per cent of people are ignorant of the truth of existence, whilst 10 per cent know

this truth but work to keep the 85 per cent ignorant in order to manipulate them.

The remaining 5 per cent also know this truth but work to enlighten the rest of

humanity. These beliefs are manifested in various ways within hip-hop with Nas,

Poor Righteous Teachers and Rakim being particular renowned for invoking Five

Percenter themes (Floyd-Thomas 2003:58-59). When Rakim, for example, raps,


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Im God / G is the seventh letter made (Eric B. & Rakim 1988: No Competition),

he is making reference both to the Five Percenter idea that the 5 per cent are

Gods and to the elaborate Five Percenter system of meanings attached to letters

and numbers. It is from this that the popular slang term G,used by hiphoppas to

refer to one another, has emerged. Naeem Mohaiemen claims that Five Percenter

doctrines are responsible for a many popular phrases and slang terms found in

hip-hop culture, such as peace, represent and break it down (2008).

Hip-hop can also be seen as a space in which religious interpretations and

theological positions are posited. Anthony Pinn points to the like of KRS-One and

Arrested Development to highlight instances whereby humanist and

humanitarian reconfigurations of (mainly Christian) scripture have been

expressed. Pinn claims that KRS-One configures the notion of accountability in

tension between humanity and divinity in a way that offers a human-centred

theistic orientation (Pinn 2003:89). This is particularly clear, Pinn states, in his

song Why Is That, in which he highlights the Eurocentrism of typical biblical

interpretations and questions why raceBlackness in particularis always left

out of these accounts (ibid.; Boogie Down Productions 1989). Likewise, Speech

from Arrested Development can also be seen as advancing a humanist theology

in their song Fishin for Religionby criticising the passivity that he finds rife in

the Baptist Church and promoting human action over submission to Gods will

(Pinn 2003:91; Arrested Development 1992).

Hip-hop identities on the stage of religion

KRS-Ones Gospel of Hip Hopconstitutes an extraordinary example of the kind of

interaction in which religion provides the basis for hip-hop identity formations.


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The publication adopts a huge variety of themes, forms, techniques and ideas

from the doctrines and traditions of a wide range of organised religions. On first

glance, it could be mistaken for a copy of the Bible: at more than 800 pages long

the book is quite thick, its hard cover is brown with a worn effect and the text on

the cover is printed in a gothic typeface using a gold-leaf effect and framed by a

decorative golden trim. Inside, the chapters are listed as an Order of

Overstandingsa slang term that signifies a greater mastery of an idea than a

mere understandingof which there are eighteen (KRS-One 2009:2-3). KRS-One

begins the tome by declaring hip-hop to be a new covenant, that hip-hop isGods

love because it saved us from self-destruction (ibid. 9). What we are dealing

with here, he claims, is the rediscovery of our ancient birthright, our original

culture which is our true religion (ibid. 15). A Christian influence is clearly

present here, and rather than expressing them as they are, KRS-One uses

Christian concepts as the foundations upon which to articulate hip-hop culture

as a religion in its own right.

This is further exemplified by the description that KRS-One provides of

the history of hip-hop. He organises the development of hip-hop culture into eras

that are ten years in length, starting with the Dark Agefrom 1961 and moving

into the Light Age, the Golden Age, the Platinum Ageand the Information Age

(ibid.123-125). He also points to artists such as Kool DJ Herca DJ that helped

begin the trend for free street parties in the 1970sand calls him the

recognised Father of Hip Hop(ibid.92). He says, Approaching Kool Herc (the

Father) historically as simply a DJ is like approaching Jesus (the Christ)

historically as simply a carpenter (ibid.).


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It is also obvious that the author has also been influenced by other

religious traditions. KRS-One infuses words and ideas with a whole host of

meanings in a way that resonates with Five Percenter doctrines, and he is

particularly keen on turning key words into meaningful acronyms. Hip-hop, for

example, stands for Holy Integrated People Having Omni-present Power (ibid.

70). He also urges hiphoppas to follow a set of practices to heighten their

spiritual life within hip-hop, such as fasting or restricting their diet to certain

foods on particular days of the year (ibid. 386). Moreover, he provides a list of

365 affirmations to be spoken out loudone for every day of the year (ibid. 390-

437).

KRS-One is not alone in adopting these kinds of doctrines and structures

for hip-hop. Rzas The Tao of Wu is clearly influenced by Chaan Buddhism,

Taoism, Islam and the Five Percenters, and its blurb describes it as a nonfiction

Siddharthafor the hip-hop generation.The bookstitle is a play on Benjamin

Hoffmans 1982publication The Tao of Pooh, an introduction to Taoism written

for Western audiences. After an introduction and a foreword from Founder and

Abbot of the USA Shaolin Temple, Sifu Shi Yan Ming, The Tao of Wuschapters are

structured into seven pillars of wisdom. Each of these begins with a quote from

the likes of Lao-Tzu and Aristotle and is followed by an autobiographical section.

Rza then ends each chapter with some thoughts and poetry based on the

philosophical lessons he has learned from a life lived in hip-hop. Although very

different from KRS-Ones Gospel of Hip Hop, Rza offers the reader an insight into

the spiritual journey of a hiphoppa by adopting various ideas put forward within

a variety of religious traditions.


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Well-known hip-hop artists are not alone in expounding these kinds of

encounter between religion and hip-hop. African Methodist Episcopal pastor,

professor of Evangelism and Church Growth, and self-professed hiphoppa Ralph

Watkins claims that hip-hop is redemptive because it has theological resources

(2011: E-book location 166). In Hip-Hop Redemption, Watkins talks about hip-

hop as a way of being, knowing and living, (ibid. 1158) and refers to a hip-hop

nationconsisting of those who subscribe to hip-hop as a way of life (ibid. 1114).

These ideas, he says, began to form in his mind after attending a KRS-One

concert that he describes as being like a spiritual journey (ibid. 437). We went

to church that night, he declares, up and down we bounced asthe Spirit gave

utterance (ibid.). Again, religious concepts are used to frame this discourse on

hip-hop: Watkins explores the work of rapper DMX, pondering whether his work

can be considered sacred text (ibid. 2150), and like KRS-One he talks about early

hiphoppas such as Afrika Bambaataa as spiritual fathers of hip-hop (ibid. 620).

These numerous and varied encounters between religion and hip-hop are

interesting, but in and of themselves they are mere observations that do not

mean very much. But when we take a step back and look at some of the wider

social and political developments around hip-hop it becomes possible to locate

some possible explanations as to why religion and hip-hop have combined in

such ways.

In historical perspective: hip-hop enters the marketplace

As KRS-One demonstrated when he referred to him as the father of hip-hop, the

arrival of Jamaican DJ Kool Herc in the Bronx is often described as signalling the


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beginning if hip-hop culture (Neate 2003:9). Kool Herc is credited with

developing some of the hip-hop modes of expression (Rose 1994:51-52). Firstly,

he played his music out on the streets freely for all to hear so that anyone could

join in the party. Although certainly not the first to play music outside on stereo

speakers, his Herculord sound system was so loud and of such high quality that

they could replicate a club atmosphere (ibid.). This was a significant feature of

early hip-hop and almost certainly a crucial component for the formation of a

strong hip-hop cultural identity. Live music was, as it is in most cities, mostly

performed in clubs that were too expensive for some people to visit regularly, so

block parties became a place for the young and poor of the area to have fun.

Furthermore, the fact that the Bronx had come to embody the decaying edges of

American society meant that street jams were also a way for locals to find a new

pride in being from the area. Kool Hercs second major contribution to the

movement was his creative mixing of the records he played. Most DJs at the time

would carefully blend one song into the next to make sure that the music never

stopped and the beat was constant (Toop 2000:12), but Kool Herc changed

things up. He noticed that people were dancing hardest during parts of songs at

which the vocals and melody broke down to give the rhythm section some space.

To maintain this hype he would loop this section of the song over and over

(Neate 2003:9-10), effectively creating an entirely new piece of music through

his novel use of turntables.

As DJs replicated and developed his style, hip-hop culture began to take

its recognisable form. Grandmaster Flash, the DJ who pioneered the use of

scratching, asked his friends to perform verbal boasts at some of his shows in

order to keep the crowd moving and dancing rather than watching him DJ (Rose


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1994:54). This quickly turned into an open mic session with people stepping up

to entertain the crowd over the music with short rhymes using innovative slang

and rhythmic execution that later developed into the complex rap routines for

which hip-hop MCs are famed (ibid.). But while rapping began as a supplement to

the music, it soon became the focus of hip-hop because of the hard-hitting

messages and stories that rappers would tell about life in the neighbourhood.

Melle Mel, one of the first hip-hop MCs, exhibits this in Grandmaster Flash and

the Furious Fives 1982 song The Message. Here, he vividly describes the

claustraphobic poverty of his daily life and his feeling of liminality, warning the

listener, dont push me cos Im close to the edge (Grandmaster Flash and the

Furious Five 1982: The Message). Melle Mel had set a standard and many were

inspired to adopt his creative style of speak while striving to say something

important (ibid.54-55).

The ten years or so following the release of The Message have been

regularly described as hip-hops golden age (Neate 2003:10). Most popular at

this time was a kind of conscious hip-hop that dealt with the socio-economic

and political issues of the post-civil rights era, and it found its expression in

various ways. The likes of Public Enemy and KRS-One were overt in their

criticism of the police, the government and other oppressive institutions and

structures, whereas other such as De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and Queen

Latifah promoted forms of Afrocentrism and Black pride that derived from the

more moderate Black Power philosophies. Hip-hop expression also maintained a

kind of unity of its various forms. Hiphoppas not only DJed and MCed, they also

often took part in break-dancing, beat-boxing and grafitti art too, as these were

strongly tied to the hip-hop identity (Rose 1994:34). Moreover, hiphoppas were


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still very much bound to specific localities. As Rose describes it, hip-hop

identities were forged through an attachment to and status in a local group or

alternative family, usually structured around crews and posses (ibid.).

However, this was changing rapidly. Hip-hop was expanding out of New

York with centres of creative expression developing particularly on the West

coast in Los Angeles and in parts of the South. West coast hip-hop in particular

was forming its own distinct and infamous style of gangsta rap, epitomised by

the likes of N.W.A (Niggaz Wit Attitudes), Comptons Most Wanted and Snoop

Doggy Dog (ibid.59). The lyrics of gangsta rap of are often explicitly violent and

misogynist, portraying gang crime, drug use, cop killing and female

dismemberment while blurring the line between artistic representation and

promotion (ibid.1; Sylvan 2011:294). It was in the wake of gangsta rap that hip-

hop began to move from the confines of underground reverence to gain

mainstream success (Sylvan 2011:294). Although The Sugarhill Gangs Rappers

Delight marked the beginning of hip-hops legacy as a marketable product, Peter

Watrous at the New York Timeshailed the release of Run-D.M.Cs album Tougher

Than Leatherin 1988 as raps entrance into the mainstream commercial music

world(Watrous 1988). Before this, rap was rarely played on the radio or sold in

record shops because it only appealed to a limited audience of young black

people (ibid.). Now that it was achieving greater mass appeal, artists started

signing deals with major record labels. Independent record labels that had

formed alongside hip-hop culture were also being bought up by their larger

rivals.

This process of incorporation and commercialisationoften referred to

in lyrics as crossing overwas a bittersweet moment in hip-hops history. On


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the one hand, artists were given access to greater resources with which to make

and perform their music. They also had the opportunity to make vast sums of

money and leave the oppressive environment of the hood. However, crossing

over also meant relinquishing a large amount of creative control to label

executives whose primary aim was to make sure that records and concert tickets

would sell to the masses. Carmen Ashurst, a former president of Def Jam

Recordings, notes that the widespread purchase of hip-hop record labels by the

major companies corresponded with the emergence of gangsta raps popularity.

The music became less conscious as it gained a wider platform, she says, adding,

and I dont think thats a coincidence (Quoted in Hurt 2006: 45:02-45:13). As a

result, the public perception of hip-hop and, by extension, the young African-

Americans whose identities were tied up with hip-hop, became centred on

outraged media reactions to the violent lyrics of gangsta rap.

At the same time, hip-hops audience was undergoing massive change and

expansion. In 2000, N. R. Kleinfield of The New York Timesclaimed that middle-

class white people made up seventy per cent of rap music sales (Kleinfield 2000).

(Although figures such as this have been strongly refuted, particularly by hip-

hop journalist Davey D (2006), many artists, Pep Love of Hieroglyphics for

example (The Company Man 2012), have commented on the steady increase in

the proportion of white people at their concerts.) What this meant was that large

companies, run predominantly by white people (Katz quoted in Hurt 2006

52:10-52:28), were capitalising on representations of black otherness that could

be sold to well-off white people. In effect, they were gaining control over the way

that young African Americans could represent themselves within the public eye


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through hip-hop, and they did this by exploiting stereotypes and prejudices that

exist along racial lines.

Byron Hurt provides some excellent examples of this process in his

thought-provoking documentary Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, which

discusses masculine performativity in hip-hop. Hurt runs into a host of young

aspiring rappers who convene outside big concerts and industry conventions,

and questions them about their violent, misogynistic lyrics. After rapping to the

camera about murder and rape, they talk about their view of conscious and

righteous lyrics such as KRS-Ones Self Destruction. One man says, they [the

record companies] dont wanna hear that; they think wedont wanna hear that

(Hurt 2006: 41:45-43:15). The media dont wanna portray us as good fathers,

hard workers explains another (ibid.). Later on, Hurt interviews a group of

young, white hip-hop fans, asking them what it is about the music that draws

them in. One woman says, I grew up in white middle-class suburbia Ive never

had to worry about drive-by shootings and the stuff in the music, it appeals to

our sense of learning about other cultures (ibid.48:20-48:48).

The battle for self-representation

A schism had formed in hip-hop. Watkins describes the mood as follows: there

was a tension in hip-hop then just as there is now. There were those who saw

hip-hop as a political vehicle from the streets meant to save the streets, and there

were others who saw hip-hop as a means off the streets into the corporate suites

(2011: E-book location 865). While, hip-hop continued to be a space for

expressions of blackness, there was now a question of ownership that presented

hiphoppas with a difficult choice. Commericial hip-hop provided disadvantaged


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African-Americans with the opportunity to transcend the oppressive conditions

of poverty in which many of them existed, but it also meant them trading in their

control over popular representations of themselves and, ultimately, sustaining

the structures that oppressed them in the first place. On the other hand, by

performing non-commericial hip-hop, disadvantaged African-Americans could

attempt to reconfigure those power structures by formulating stable identities,

undermining racial stereotypes and prejudices, and promoting education and

political activism. As such, these two forms of hip-hopcommercial and non-

commercialstruggled against one another. One perpetuated the structural

subjugation of African-Americans, the other worked to destabilise such

processes.

Interestingly, up until only quite recently, religious ideas were only ever

explored within the boundaries of non-commercial hip-hop.1The likes of KRS-

One, Public Enemy and Arrested Development, all of whom employed notions of

religion in one way or another, quickly slipped out of the limelight after the

corporate takeover of the record labels, despite continuing to produce music.

This isnt a coincidence. Non-commercial hiphoppas were invoking religious

discourses in such a way that they became weapons in their struggle against

oppressive power structures and their battle for self-representation. This can be

observed in the way that the use of religious ideas and concepts imbues hip-hop

culture with a level of discursive legitimacy and authority that they would not

have otherwise had. This kind of legitimacy enables hiphoppas and hip-hop

narratives to be taken seriously within their wider social and political context.

1Kanye West bemoans this state of affairs in Jesus Walks(2004) when he says, They say you

can rap about anything except for Jesus / That means guns, sex, lies, video tapes / But if I talkabout God my record won't get played. In doing so, he simultaneously helped to bring religion

back into the realms of commercial hip-hop.


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What is interesting is that both forms of encounterhip-hop as a means for

articulating religious identities and vice versafunctioned towards the same

ends.

Firstly, for holy hiphoppas as well as others who speak of their adherence

to particular traditions within their lyrics, religious proclamations allow them to

transcend racial lines that typically frame hip-hop, and to carve out a space for

expression within the wider social landscape. American identities are often very

closely tied to religion, so expressions of faith frequently have the power to

determine a persons ability to take part in political dialogue (Gallup 2009). By

establishing common religious ground with outsiders, hiphoppas who invoke

religion get closer to the discussion table where their views are more likely to be

acknowledged and taken seriously by society at large. This common ground is

formed in terms of a fundamental understanding around the ordering of the

universea belief in a higher power, for examplebut also, and more

importantly, in terms of beliefs that determine human action, such as systems of

morality and ethics. Encounters between people that are based upon shared

conceptions of the fundamental nature of their existence are often positive, but

even more so are encounters between those whose notions of morality and

ethics coincide. Watkins demonstrates this particularly well because he is in a

prime position to represent hip-hop and religion in an authoritative way. As a

professor, pastor and a hiphoppa, he spans identities, professions and social

groups that often oppose one another. He forms a syncretism in Hip Hop

Redemption that takes hip-hop seriously whilst taking religious ideas as given

and in doing so he pulls up a chair for hip-hop at the table of the discursively

powerful. He does this by talking in Christian theological terms that are familiar


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and acceptable to those who are opposed to, or merely outside of, the hip-hop

community.

Secondly, those who articulate a hip-hop identity through the use of

religious concepts also bestow hip-hop with a kind of authority in the face of

public consternation. The Gospel of Hip Hopprovides a good example. KRS-Ones

claim that hip-hop is a religion is a bold attempt to align the hip-hop identity

with ultimate and divine powers and turn it into a transcendent form. However,

while it would be hard to argue that he has managed to establish widely accepted

understanding of hip-hop as a religion, the Gospelshould be understand as acting

in a more indirect way on hip-hops discursive power. KRS-One places great

emphasis upon self-knowledge in the Gospelas well as in his songs (KRS-One

2001: HipHop Knowledge).He says, this is what we are missing

KNOWLEDGE OF OURSELVES! With no such knowledge we have no way of

controlling and/or directing ourselves(2009:60). This is a particularly

Foucauldian insight that, when applied to the Gospelin general, demonstrates

how expressions of hip-hop identity that are formed through religious structures

work to move power in the direction of hiphoppas. For Foucault, knowledge is

power (Foucault 1979:27), so discursive processes of knowledge formation are

inseparable from the workings of power. By reifying hip-hop and the hip-hop

identity in religious terms, KRS-One is attempting to empower the hip-hop

community to act in a unified manner through the grace of God so as to

counteract outside forces.

Religious encounters in hip-hop can therefore be seen as part of a

struggle for self-representation. The incursion of the music industry in the 1990s

meant that outsiders were taking control of the ways in which hip-hop,


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hiphoppas and, consequently, forms of Blackness could be represented in the

wider public sphere. Portrayals of violence and highly sexualised misogynist

black masculinity very often capitalised upon moral intrigue and outrage.

Hiphoppas became widely depicted as the epitome of amorality, a kind of anti-

Christ that served to uphold racial inequality, to delegitimise black expression

and to sustain the moral righteousness of those outside of the hip-hop

community. Non-commercial, conscious hip-hop undermines this process. By

articulating religious identities hiphoppas move towards reconciling their self-

representations with wider social norms with the aim of challenging and

destabilising depictions of hip-hop that are controlled and propagated by outside

commercial powers. They also do this by utilising religious concepts in order to

strengthen a hip-hop identity, enabling strong, stable and coherent self-

representations to be propagated in its name.

While the struggle for self-representation on the part of hiphoppas in the face of

outsider hegemony constitutes one way to explain the various convergences

between religion and hip-hop, it is not the only one. By looking at some of the

wider social and historical processes that have framed hip-hop culture, other

reasons can also be identified.

In historical perspective: African-American history and religiosity

Hip-hop did not develop in a bubble but is the direct result of socio-economic

relations. These relations have played a part in determining the various conflicts

in which hiphoppas are engaged. To understand the implications of the

encounters between religion and hip-hop it is first necessary to explore the


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social history that frames the African-American experience and the history of the

Black church in America.

Tricia Rose claims that a large and significant element in raps discursive

territory is engaged in symbolic and ideological warfare with institutions and

groups that symbolically, ideologically, and materially oppress African-

Americans (1994:100-101). The history of America has been shaped hugely by

racial groupings and their interactions and the African-American legacy begins

with inequality in its most pure form. From 1492 until 1865 and the signing of

the 13thAmendment at the end of the American Civil War, being Black in

America was almost synonymous with slavery. Although the long and hard-

fought abolitionist campaign had freed them of their chains, African Americans

would still not acquire legal equality until more than 100 years later. In fact, only

a few decades after the abolition of slavery the Jim Crow laws that segregated

Blacks from Whites in public places were implemented. Although racial

segregation was largely the norm before Jim Crow was passed (Hine et al.

2011:358), the laws made it a crime for the races to mix, and despite the Plessy

vs. Fergusonlaw of 1896 that upheld the doctrine of separate but equal,

segregation severely reduced the freedoms of African Americans only (ibid.360).

At the same time, they were subjected to extreme violence, particularly lynching

and rape in the South, some of which was perpetrated by white supremacist

groups and all of which was legitimised by the idea that Black people were of an

inferior race (ibid.362).

This legacy of legal inequality lasted until a series of laws were passed in

the 1960s and 70s. Such a development was the result of the tireless efforts of

the civil rights movement, a broad and decentralised set of national, regional and


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local organisations such as the National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People (NAACP) (Newman 2004:1). These groups worked together with

the aim of ending segregation and institutional racism, campaigning for rights by

putting pressure on the government, protesting and educating.

None of this would have been possible had it not been for the existence of

Black religious institutions and organisations. African-Americans are

significantly more religious than any other ethnic group in America, with 79%

stating in a 2007 poll that religion is very important in their life compared with

56% overall (Pew Forum 2009). The religious history of African-Americans

begins with their arrival. Although various West African beliefs and practices

were maintained for a long while (Hine et al.2011:72), African-Americans

gradually adopted Christianity across the country. Many were prevented from

doing so by slave owners who saw conversion as a potential threat to the

master-slave hierarchy, and even when they were allowed to attend church black

members were often segregated and preached to in a derogatory manner (ibid.

73-74). As a result, it became common for African-American communities to set

up their own churches in which they could develop independent communal

religious identities that would reflect their socio-historical circumstances. With

the Baptist denomination being by far the most frequently established, the Black

church became a site of refuge and autonomy. Hine et al.describe these 19thand

20thCentury institutions as sourcesof spiritual comfort and centres of social

activity in which clergymen became the most influential members of the black

community (2011:387).

In this respect, it is easy to see why they played such an important role in

the civil right movement. As C. Eric Lincoln explains, for the black believer, the


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Black Church was not only a symbol of Gods intentionthat all men should be

free, it was also the instrument of Gods continuing revelation of that intent

(Lincoln 1999:63). The Black church nurtured many powerful leaders that

fought for social change and black freedom, including Nat Turner who led a slave

rebellion in 1831, Adam Clayton Powell who was the first African-American

congressman, and most famous of all Martin Luther King Jr. who led the

influential Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) (ibid.95). It became

obvious to these leaders and their congregations that what they had built up

constituted a powerful force for change. By employing religious discourses, civil

rights activists could appeal to sensibilities that transcended racial boundaries.

Lincoln describes the movement as being both instructive and embarrassingto

the American religious establishment because in many ways it was a perfect

example of elemental Christian ethics put into practice (1999:98). African-

American appeals to biblical doctrines and their nonviolent reactions to vicious

incitements highlighted the hypocrisy of an American religious establishment

that was preaching those very values whilst upholding their very opposites

(ibid.).

However, Christianity was not alone in playing a key role in gaining civil

rights for African Americans. Although Muslims only made up a very small

minority of the black population, the influence of Islamic organisations and

principles upon the movement was disproportionate in comparison. This is

mainly because of how closely linked it was to the Black Power political ideology

that began to make a contentious appearance towards the end of the civil rights

era. Supporters of Black Power were often disillusioned by the huge amount of

effort that civil right movement had put in to making relatively small social gains


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(Newman 2004:116). They began to embrace a wide and often conflicting range

of agendas ranging from the extremes of black nationalism and separatism to

more moderate notions of black pride and empowerment. Some of these ideas

are very much associated with the legendary figure of Malcolm X who became a

prominent figure as a member of the Nation of Islam. At first, he spoke widely

and articulately in support of the more extreme forms of Black Power that were

compatible with some of the religious doctrines that he observed, and because of

this garnered fascination and enchantment among poor, mainly young, black

people. Although he later renounced his adherence to the Nation of Islam,

converted to a more orthodox form of Sunni Islam and adopted a more moderate

form of Black Power ideology, his legacy within the Nation of Islam has had a

powerful impact upon black American identities and beliefs.

From civil rights to hip-hop

The civil rights era ended with the gradual provision of legal freedoms and

equalities that came into place after the deaths of Martin Luther King and

Malcolm X. It was out of this historical context that hip-hop began to develop as a

predominantly African-American form of cultural expression. Two features of

the post-civil rights era and the emergence of the hip-hop generationcan help

explain why hip-hop and religion converge in the ways that they do: the first is

the reconfiguration of racial inequality and the second is the formation of a sharp

generational socio-economic divide among African Americans.

Patricia Hill Collins argues that after civil rights were gained, racism in

America shifted from being colour-conscious to adopting a kind of colour-blind

form that promised equal opportunities yet provided no lasting avenues for


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African American advancement (2006:3). She explains that in 2006 black youth

poverty was almost twice as high as the national level and this was tied up with

the fact that black youth are highly represented in the media while

simultaneously ignored in wider public discourse (ibid.3-4). Levels of racial

inequality to this day remain high, with a 2011 study showing that black people

in America maintain just 71.5% of the socio-economic status held by white

Americans, a level of inequality even greater than the previous year (CNN 2011).

While American laws no longer overtly discriminate based on skin colour, latent

social structures have meant that since civil rights were gained in 1968 African

Americans have remained socio-economically subjugated.

Secondly, the way the civil rights era generation and the hip-hop

generation have been defined separately has often served to highlight feelings of

animosity between the two. Todd Boyd defines the hip-hop generation as the

New Black Aesthetic (NBA) generation and describes them as seeing individual

power and access to the means of representation as significant goals(1997:17).

These objectives were, of a course, a logical extension of the civil right

movement; the new generation were making claims on their new-found rights.

However, due to the lingering structures of inequality, which were compounded

further by the Reagan administration, many young African Americans were not

able to raise themselves out of the conditions of poverty and oppression in the

ways that the movement had promised. Furthermore, there was no longer a

structure through which to express and combat these issues. As Watkins

explains, the black church had achieved its goals of civil rights and subsequently

began the process of removing itself from the inner city and out into the suburbs.

The African American church, he says, became a bastion for middle-class African


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Americans (Watkins 2011: E-book location 1319). Critics such as Joshua

Hutchinson, argue that the Black church has increasingly become an isolated

nation of wealth in the Ocean of Denial, refusing to join, address or even concern

itself with the many ills that still plague the Black community (2012:15). These

circumstances in which black youth were becoming disillusioned with the black

church combined with on-going inner city poverty and disadvantage meant that

the religious sentiments of the NBA generation neededto find their

development and expression elsewhere and hip-hop provided this space.

With this in mind, it then becomes possible to form some other

explanations for the encounters between religion and hip-hop, and these are

quite varied. For some, expressing religious identities through hip-hop has

provided the space to make attempts at re-engaging religious institutions with

the pressing issues of poverty and inner city struggles that are a reality for many

African Americans. By promoting Gospel values as a path to salvation and

healing, it is generally the performers and fans of holy hip-hop that are making

these efforts. This kind of hip-hop can be conceived as a reaction by the Black

church to hip-hop rather than the other way around. Cassandra Thornton

advocates holy hip-hop on the basis that in order to successfully reach any

culture, it is necessary to know and speak the language of that culture

(2012:115). As such, holy hip-hop functions as an instrument through which the

Black church might tackle the plight of poor African-Americans by proselytising.

However, many hiphoppas who explicitly articulate the ideas and beliefs

of religious doctrine often do so while maintaining a distance from religious

institutions. For them, hip-hop is a space for religious exploration, interpretation,

reconfiguration and synthesis, without making religious ends the purpose of


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their expression. In this way, hip-hop functions in some respects to replace

religious institutions as a space for performing and reconfiguring religious

identities. As such, hiphoppas are able to replicate to role that the Black church

and Nation of Islam played in the civil rights movement by forming a cohesive

community around religious expression in order to effect social change.

Moreover, expressing religious beliefs also gives hiphoppas credentials that can

be used as rebuff criticisms lodged at hip-hop by religious groups.

Finally, racial inequality and disillusionment with religious institutions

among hiphoppas also helps to explain the ways in which religious concepts

have been exploited with the aim of expressing coherent hip-hop identities. KRS-

Ones claim that hip-hop is a religion, for example, can also be understood as

conveying a radical reformulation of traditional modes of Black religiosity. He

takes established religious concepts and discursive forms, strips them of their

message andreplaces it with something that reinforces a hip-hop identity. In

this way, some encounters between religion and hip-hop can be understood as a

fundamental rejection of the institutions that both negated poor African-

American youth after the civil rights era and criticised the hip-hop culture that

offered the dispossessed a platform on which to be heard.

Some wider implications

Thus far in this inquiry, I have been concerned first with underlining the

convergences between religion and hip-hop that can be empirically observed

within various kinds of discourse. I have also analysed those encounters with

reference to some social, political and historical content in order to draw out

some possible reasons for their occurrence. However, it is also worth stepping


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back to gain some perspective on what these evaluations might mean in terms of

our understanding of ideas such as identity and representation, as well as our

scope for talking about ideas relating to religion.

First of all, looking at religion and hip-hop in this way helps to show how

identity formations are caught up in a complex series of power dynamics.

Identities are things that we strive to firmly establish so as to secure our ability

to act in the world as coherent subjects. But at the same time, they also serve to

bind us into narrow performative roles that are determined by diffuse social

practiceswhat Foucault elaborates as technologiesof production, sign

systems, power and self (1994:225)that, by their very nature, cannot be

modified simply by the free-will of the individual. This is why Halls definition of

identity sees subject positions as being the product of discursive formations

(1996:6). As such, subjects are in a constant battle, struggling to form identities

by performing certain roles, while fighting to gain control over what a particular

identity performance entails by directing discourse in certain directions. The

dialogue between religion and hip-hop helps to demonstrate a two things: firstly,

identities regularly conflict but they also cooperate; and secondly, by tracing the

ways that identities interact with one another and adopt each others

performative coordinates, it becomes possible to trace some of the power

relations that determine socio-economic and political structures of hegemony

and oppression, as well as modes of resistance. For example, by examining the

way that hiphoppas have appropriated discursive formations that are commonly

associated with discourses of religion, I have been able to highlight some of the

processes that maintain and perpetuate African American subjugation and

attempts to destabilise this.


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Looking at these encounters in this way also helps to demonstrate the fact

that religious ideas, whether as content or form, have a great deal of currency

within discursive environments, particularly in America. There are certainly

some deeper reasons for this: perhaps an alliance with issues relating to divinity

and the absolute functions to imbue a kind of timeless universality to the social

formations that result, which in turn grants them a level of stability. However,

this is a separate inquiry. What I think is important in this regard is the impact

that this has upon the Study of Religions in general. The development of

postmodern modes of inquiry have not only problematised established modes of

studying religion, they have also destabilised the category religion itself.This

has lead to some deep soul-searching within the field. Paul Griffiths, for example,

argues that the future of the Study of Religion looks bleak because its formal

object of studyreligioncannot be properly grasped (Griffiths 2006:66-67,

74). While postmodernity has indeed undermined the ability of scholars of

religion to do their work in various ways (Bauman 1998:57), it seems to me that

this does not entirely negate the need for the Study of Religions. Religion still

plays a very important role in determining power relations through knowledge

formations, so attempting to understand how and why this impacts upon people

lives remains as necessary as ever. This exploration of religion in hip-hop not

only demonstrates that this is the case, it is also an attempt to formulate an

approach to studying religion along such lines.

Conclusion

In following the meeting points between hip-hop and religion, a number of

things have become apparent. These convergences are numerous but they are


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also highly varied, with the two concepts being interacting in a range of ways. In

terms of identity formation, some expressions can be observed as the

performance of religious identity through the modes of hip-hop expression,

whereas other comprise of a hip-hop identity performance that borrows from

religious concepts. However they are formulated, when examined within the

historical context of increasing commercialisation and the reconfiguration of

experiences of being young, black and poor, such encounters appear to function

as a means of resistance to oppressive social forces. This kind of analysis is

useful because it shows some of the ways in which identity formations operate in

relation to one another. It also demonstrates why inquiry into religion is both

important and very possible within the context of postmodernity.

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Documents