{"id":2972,"date":"2013-11-29T20:53:50","date_gmt":"2013-11-30T02:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/emergentvillage\/?p=2972"},"modified":"2013-11-30T11:13:19","modified_gmt":"2013-11-30T17:13:19","slug":"religion-and-hip-hop-in-my-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/emergentvillage\/2013\/11\/religion-and-hip-hop-in-my-youth\/","title":{"rendered":"Religion and Hip-Hop in my Youth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cWhat do you believe in heaven or hell?\u00a0 We don\u2019t believe in heaven cuz\u2019 we\u2019re livin\u2019 in hell.\u201d\u2014Raekwon<\/a><\/p>\n

Lately I have been thinking a lot about religion and hip-hop.\u00a0 I recently came across Dr. Monica Miller\u2019s interview<\/a> in the Washington Post about religion and hip-hop, which prompted me to write a piece of my own.\u00a0 From the age of 13, when I was first introduced to hip-hop culture, to 18, when I finally opened up to other music, all I listened to were lyrics over beats.\u00a0 I had an older friend named Tony\u2014who I sadly know developed schizophrenia later in life\u2014who taught me how to break dance (well, the 6-step at least), freestyle, and beat-box.\u00a0 He also taught me how to \u201cwrite\u201d (a term that refers to tagging, drawing \u201cpieces,\u201d and spraying street art), gave me a name, and encouraged me to continually practice the art of hip-hop.\u00a0 He was, in many ways, my hip-hop guru.\u00a0 For Tony, hip-hop culture was a sacred expression of low-culture and street life.\u00a0 He was a purist to the point of constantly working out to better his dancing, drinking wheat-grass and eating healthy to stay alert, and always practicing some form of hip-hop.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hip-hop was certainly something \u201cexotic\u201d that I appropriated.\u00a0 It was not that common for a mainly white (partly Mexican) kid from San Diego to be involved in \u201cunderground\u201d hip-hop.\u00a0 Sure, there were the Beastie Boys and House of Pain, but Eminem had yet to make it big.\u00a0 I am not saying that I was not a devout \u201chead,\u201d or that I think it is wrong for white people to be involved in hip-hop culture.\u00a0 I am saying that it was still a sub-sub-culture of white guys who could freestyle on command on the street corner.\u00a0 Not to mention that for a long time\u2014besides a few examples like Pharcyde and Souls of Mischief\u2014gangster rap ruled the minds and airwaves of the West Coast.\u00a0 San Diego is a long way from the Boogie Down Bronx.<\/p>\n

Most of the hip-hop I enjoyed spoke often of \u201cknowledge of self\u201d and being your own God (hence the slang term for another person being \u201cgod\u201d).\u00a0 As Jeru the Damaja once said, \u201clook the sky for your savoir, but he won\u2019t save ya, he didn\u2019 save your forefathers. Brothers, you must discover the knowledge of self\u201d (in \u201cAin\u2019t the Devil Happy\u201d<\/a>).\u00a0 This kind of introspection and philosophical reflection was a way of \u201celevating your mind\u201d beyond the troubles of life\u2014troubles born out of living in a crime-filled, poverty stricken, environment.\u00a0 When these mc\u2019s stared up through the cracks between the high-rise project housing, viewing the blue sky above, they imagined a way of transcending all of the struggle and bustle of urban city life.\u00a0 For many of them, various forms of black-Islam were appealing.\u00a0 Guru, who often rapped about the ideas of the Five-Percent Nation<\/a> (or \u201cNations of Gods and Earths\u201d which was started by Clarence 13X<\/a>, a former member of the Nation of Islam), found a way to combine Muslim imagery with an urban call for social justice and peace.\u00a0 Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, and Wu-Tang Clan did similar things.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So while these mc\u2019s appropriated the mystic East, I appropriated them.\u00a0 It should be noted that while many of the views and usages of the East by these men were done in an \u201corientalist\u201d manner, they also seemed to honestly appreciate Chinese and Japanese culture.\u00a0 This made for many days watching Kung-Fu flicks, discussing the Dao de Jing, and imagining an enchanted world full of wisdom, beauty, and truth.\u00a0 So while I was discovering \u201cAsian culture\u201d through these people, it wasn\u2019t for the sake of discovering the East; I cared more about discovering black culture in the United States.<\/p>\n

Looking back, I was always struck by the interesting contradictions between talking about promoting peace and unity, and the other side that spoke of killing rivals and living a hedonistic lifestyle filled with drugs, sex, and power.\u00a0 This apparent contradiction is common in most of the rappers I love.\u00a0 It is as if they want something more than the banal death of each other, but cannot seem to escape the language and cultural mores of their upbringing (which is understandable).\u00a0 So when someone like Camron is being interviewed by Bill O\u2019Reilly, and says something like, \u201cI am not promoting guns, drugs, and sex, but simply reporting on it,\u201d one begins to wonder where he draws the line.\u00a0 And although he is right that you often cannot blame the reporter, what he is doing is more than just reporting\u2014if he is doing journalism, it is some heavy version of Gonzo journalism.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/youtu.be\/CnhUYWbW3jQ<\/p>\n

So what hip-hop taught me was that I need to find my own way of navigating through life\u2014using my intelligence, virtue, and strength.\u00a0 It also reminded me that no one is a saint.\u00a0 The sage with \u201cknowledge of holy scrolls\u201d also smoked weed and cursed.\u00a0 In this sense, hip-hop transgresses clear lines drawn between the sacred and the profane.\u00a0 And although I understand that hip-hop is not monolithic (there are many hip-hop\u2019s which compete for the title of \u201creal hip-hop\u201d), and that, as Q-Tip once said<\/a>, \u201chip-hop, a way of life, it doesn\u2019t tell you how to raise a child or treat a wife,\u201d it still lead me to certain ways of thinking about the world.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat do you believe in heaven or hell?\u00a0 We don\u2019t believe in heaven cuz\u2019 we\u2019re livin\u2019 in hell.\u201d\u2014Raekwon Lately I have been thinking a lot about religion and hip-hop.\u00a0 I recently came across Dr. Monica Miller\u2019s interview in the Washington Post about religion and hip-hop, which prompted me to write a piece of my own.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1428,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nReligion and Hip-Hop in my Youth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cWhat do you believe in heaven or hell?\u00a0 We don\u2019t believe in heaven cuz\u2019 we\u2019re livin\u2019 in hell.\u201d\u2014Raekwon Lately I have been thinking a lot about religion\" 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