For the next few weeks I will be doing a series on Hip Hop,
specifically, how Hip Hop culture engages with religion and the Bible. Just for
clarification of terms, “hermeneutics” refers to the lenses through which one
studies, reads and interprets the Bible. Some may be saying, “Hip Hop has
absolutely nothing to do with the Bible!” Many would agree that hip-hop is
clearly in opposition and rebellion against everything the Bible teaches and
stands for! Nevertheless, hip-hop draws from the Bible and biblical images more
than one might think. In fact, hip-hop is obsessed with it!! Various songs
contain cries and pleas for God: His presence, His mercy, His forgiveness, His
peace, His deliverance, and His guidance. Numerous music videos and even album
covers contain religious symbolism and invoke biblical images to get their
message across. This series will explore how Hip Hop’s use of biblical and
religious images and symbolism gives us insight to Hip Hop’s “hermeneutic” or
interpretation of the Bible. The first such segment will explore Hip Hop and postmodernism.
It is no secret that we live in an age that has been classified as
“postmodern”. The precise meaning of this term, however, is quite ambiguous and
open to interpretation (ironically right in line with postmodern principles). Webster’s College Dictionary defines the
term this way: of or pertaining to any of various movements in architecture,
the arts, and literature developing in the late 20th century in
reaction to the precepts…of modernism. So postmodernism is essentially a
reaction to modernism. This begs the question, what is modernism? What were its
“precepts” and tenets? Being that this is not a paper on postmodernism, this
subject will not be dealt with exhaustively. Our purposes here are to provide a
basic summary of postmodernism and then evaluate its influence and impact on
hip-hop culture and hermeneutics.
English writer and theologian David Cook says this: “Postmodernism
moves beyond the ‘modern’, scientifically based view of the world by blending a
skepticism about technology, objectivity, absolutes and total explanations with
the exploration of every spiritual and material perspective.”[1]
Modernism’s emphasis was on science. Science and technology were going to be
the savior of mankind. I like to describe modernism in terms of the popular TV
show that arose as a result of its ideas, Star
Trek. In my estimation, Star Trek
summarizes the main tenets of the modern perspective. The main gist of the show
was that through science and technological advances, mankind rose above all its
problems and ascended to a new level of evolutionary existence. In the motion
picture, Star Trek First Contact,
Captain Picard explains to an earth-woman he had met that humanity no longer
suffers from divisions and wars. When asked about his financial stability he
replies “The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force for humanity
in the 24th century. We work to better
ourselves and all mankind”. The idea is that humanity is capable of solving
its own problems through the advance of reason, science, and technology.
Postmodernism, is essentially a reaction to, and rejection of this
idea. It was quickly realized that instead of advancing humanity, technology
was contributing to its destruction! Instead of helping find cures for cancer,
it helped discover how to burst an atom to destroy thousands of people. Rather
than making warfare more “civil” and efficient, it has only made it more brutal
and inhumane. Nihilism and hopelessness are the children of this age. Stanley
Grenz puts it this way, “postmodernism replaces the optimism of the last
century with a gnawing pessimism…Members of the emerging generation are no
longer confident that humanity will be able to solve the world’s great
problems.”[2]
In general, the postmodern worldview is that “no worldview exists”.[3]
Its main tenets could be summarized as follows: a reaction against modernity, a
rejection of objective truth, skepticism and suspicion of authority, a
continued search for the transcendent, materialism, and individualistic
pluralism.[4]
Now the question is, what has postmodernity to do with hip-hop?
The answer is simple: postmodernity is
hip-hop and hip-hop is
postmodernity!! The main aspect of postmodernity I would like to focus on in
this section is what Smith and Jackson call, “the culture of questioning
everything”.[5]
Hip-hop is rooted in this idea of questioning everything. In truth, it is very
much in line with the postmodern principle of innate suspicion of authority and
institutions. Hip-hop has thus questioned just about every authority and
institution that has shaped American society, especially the place of police
(basically the entire criminal justice system), the government and, surprisingly
enough, the Christian church.[6]
It should be noted here that social movements such as civil rights and the
black power movement, along with religious movements like the Nation of Islam
form some of the roots of hip-hop culture. These movements radically questioned
the Christian churches validity and effectiveness for young black Americans.
Keeping this line of thought, hip-hop has questioned just about
every “truth” that society tries to impose upon it. In his song “Rock N Roll”,
conscious rapper Mos Def questions the true origins of the musical art form
saying, “Elvis Presley ain’t got no soul/ Little Richard is rock n roll/ you
might dig on the Rolling Stones/ but they ain’t come up wit that style on their
own”. Rapper Kanye West, in his album College
Dropout, questions whether it is really necessary to go to college to
achieve success (using his own example). Rapper Common questions “what if God
was a her?” in his song “Faithful”. Slain rapper Tupac Shakur questioned the
relevance of the educational system for poor, inner-city black youth. “I think
that we got so caught up in school being a tradition that we stopped using it
as a learning tool, which it should be…I’m learning about the basics, but
they’re not basic for me….To get us ready for today’s world [the present
curriculum] is not helping”.[7]
Hip-hop is truly a culture of questioning.
So how does this affect hip-hop’s hermeneutic? What impact do the
postmodern traits of universal questioning and institutional suspicion have on
hip-hop’s interpretation of the Bible? Fundamentally, it has created a type of
religious pluralism where no one religion
can claim to have all truth. As noted
earlier, hip-hop is automatically suspicious of institutions (primarily because
institutions have proven themselves untrustworthy). Therefore, any church or
religion that claims to be or have absolute authority or truth is automatically
viewed with suspicion. Take a lyric by Philadelphia rapper, Black Thought:
“Sex, drugs, murder, politics and religion/ forms of hustling…”.[8]
Hip-hop is fundamentally distrustful of any religion that makes an outstanding
claim to truth.[9]
Well this poses a very potent problem with Christianity and its Bible that
claims to be the exclusive Word of God. Rapper Talib Kweli says this: “Who was King
James?/ and why did he think it was so vital to remove chapters and make his
own version of the Bible”.[10]
So the Bible cannot even truly
be trusted! This inevitably creates, what has been termed in the academic
community, religious pluralism. In the everyday language of everyday people it
is adequately termed “survival”. These people are so frequently lied to by
social and government institutions that they feel it necessary to be suspicious
so as to not be sucked in by another “hustle”.
There is no absolute truth in one
religion, but they all hold
information that can lead any of their adherents to God. Consider this striking
statement made by Chicago born rapper, Common: “As a child given religion with
no answer to why/ just told believe in Jesus cause for me he did die”.[11]
So first, he questions the validity of a religion evidently handed down from
his parents. It seems that Common is addressing a type of religious ritual or
formalism that takes place in many Christian families across the country: church.
If we had a tally of how many children were dragged to church on Sunday or
Saturday mornings with no other reason than the threat of a belt, I doubt this
page could contain the results. Common’s statement also suggests a sort of
agitation at the fact that he was brought up with only one religious viewpoint.
“Just told believe in Jesus cause for me he did die”.
His next few lines will illustrate what he did with this youthful
frustration. “My mind had dealt with the books of Zen, Tao, the lessons/ Koran
and the Bible, to me they all vital/ and got truth within ‘em, gotta read them
boys/ you just can’t skim ‘em, different branches of belief/ but one root that
stem ‘em”.[12]
As a reaction against his seemingly narrow upbringing, he took it upon himself
to investigate some of the other religious claims ranging from Buddhism to
Islam. His conclusion? “To me they all vital and got truth within ‘em”! Now do
we object that some truth can be found in other religions? I hope not. I hope
we are not that narrow. However, for us, the Bible still holds the absolute
authority and is the basis by which we judge the “truth” in the other
religions. For Common however, (and here Common is representative of hip-hop as
a whole) the only authority by which to judge this truth is rooted in survival.
Truth is that which can help one survive
in this life. Author Terrence Tilley points out concerning hip-hop’s
grandparent, the blues, that for blues artists, “truth is experience and
experience is the truth”.[13]
I believe the same observation can be made of hip-hop.
Consider the next line: “Who am I or they to say to whom you pray
ain’t right/ that’s who got you doin right and
got you this far/ whether you say ‘in Jesus name’ or ‘Al-hum-du’Allah’”.[14]
In Common’s eyes, nobody has the right to dictate the “rightness” or
“wrongness” of a religion that has helped one survive. A lyric in Talib Kweli’s song, “Give ‘Em Hell” has the
same ring to it, “So it all sounds the same to me/ that’s why when they say one
is right and the other is wrong it just sounds like a game to me”. Numerous
other artists deal with the same issues and they are all saying essentially the
same thing: all of these religions
and their holy books are valid paths to God and no one of them has absolute truth. There is a rampant pluralism that
exists within hip-hop that makes pinpointing an actual hermeneutic a very
difficult task. However, even with hip-hop’s pluralism, some things that were
mentioned earlier are essential to understanding the key to unlocking hip-hop’s
hermeneutic. We noted that hip-hop’s critique of the Bible or any religion and
religious book is rooted in that which helps us survive in this life. This
leads us to the major issue that drives hip-hop’s hermeneutic which will be
explored next week: the question of theodicy or suffering.
If there was
any goodness or merit found here, that goodness and merit is from the Creator.
If there were any flaws or errors, those were mine. Blessings
[1] David
Cook, Blind Alley Beliefs (Leicester,
England: Inter-Varsity Press, 1996), 9.
[2] Stanley
Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 3.
[3] Graham
Johnston, Preaching to a Postmodern
World: A Guide to Reaching Twenty-first Century Listeners (Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker Books, 2001), 27.
[4] Ibid,
26.
[5] Smith
and Jackson, The Hip-Hop Church, 103.
[6] It would
be more accurate to say organized religion as a whole, but this will be
explored later.
[7] This is
taken from a homemade interview of Tupac when he was 17 years old.
[8] The
Roots, “It Don’t Feel Right”. Game Theory
(Def Jam Records, 2006).
[9] It
should be noted here that while this statement is true in general, there are
many hip-hop artists that subscribe completely to a religion, even though it is
mostly Islam.
[10] Talib
Kweli, “Give Em Hell”. Ear Drum
(Blacksmith/Warner Bros Records, 2007).
[11] Common,
“G.O.D. (Gaining One’s Definition)”. One
Day it Will All Make Sense (1997)
[12] Ibid
[13] Anthony
B. Pinn. Why Lord?: Suffering and Evil in
Black Theology. (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1995)
118.
[14] Ibid
No comments:
Post a Comment