Does God Listen to Rap?

Does God Listen to Rap?
Author: Curtis Allen
Publisher: Cruciform Press
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2013-11-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1936760789

A lot of people think that if there is one style of music in the world that God hates, it has got to be rap. Some have even gone so far as to call rap, “An unclean thing before the Lord.” They don’t believe something originally associated with so much evil can ever be redeemed for God’s glory. Lots of other people love and accept rap as their preferred form of musical expression. Many of these who are Christians can’t imagine why God would have any issues with rap – at least, not with songs by believers that encourage and edify them in the faith. Who’s right? And maybe more importantly, who cares? You should. And here’s why. In the past 30 years, rap music has become a vital artistic and cultural force globally, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. Like it or not, you are probably exposed to rap in one form or another on a fairly regular basis. If you’re interested in this book you may be a believer in Jesus who likes rap a lot, and as Christians, when we love something that is (if you hadn’t noticed) closely associated with sin and rebellion, our justification for being involved with it really does need to go beyond, “Dude, this is good stuff.” But maybe you’re in a different category. Maybe you’re a Christian parent, concerned that rap music may have a negative impact on your child. Maybe you’re a youth pastor worried about having a rap concert at his church because of the potential pushback. Or maybe you’re just a rap fan who is curious to see if there’s even any biblical evidence for or against rap. To put it simply, if you’ve made it this far, this book is probably for you. Does God Listen to Rap? covers two areas. First, it presents a sociological history of the emergence and development of rap. If you enjoy rap and hip hop culture, you’ll love this part of the book. Then the book explores the Scriptures to bring some biblical (not just personal or anecdotal) resolution to the question of God and rap. Ultimately, this involves a set of larger questions involving God and the arts. This is more than just an apologetic for rap music, this is a biblical way to think about how Christians can be in the world yet not of the world, and how they can express themselves to the glory of God. So, does God listen to rap? Come find out.

Hip-Hop Redemption

Hip-Hop Redemption
Author: Ralph Basui Watkins
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2011-10
Genre: Music
ISBN: 080103311X

A sociologist and pop-culture expert offers a balanced engagement of hip-hop and rap music, showing God's presence in the music and the message.

Rap With a Mission: How Rap & Hip-Hop can be used in Missions and Evangelism

Rap With a Mission: How Rap & Hip-Hop can be used in Missions and Evangelism
Author: Joseph George a.k.a Joey.G
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2016-06-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1326584502

This Book explores the History behind Rap and Hip-Hop in the Christian and Non-Christian World. It describes how Hip-Hop has strongly influenced and shaped Global Youth Culture and how it plays out in Post-Modernism. It importantly shows how Christians are using it to communicate the Gospel in Missions and Evangelism.

Rap Dad

Rap Dad
Author: Juan Vidal
Publisher: Atria Books
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2020-03-17
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1501169408

This timely reflection on male identity in America that explores the intersection of fatherhood, race, and hip-hop culture “is a page-turner…drenched in history and encompasses the energy, fire, and passion that is hip-hop” (D. Watkins, New York Times bestselling author). Just as his music career was taking off, Juan Vidal received life-changing news: he’d soon be a father. Throughout his life, neglectful men were the norm—his own dad struggled with drug addiction and infidelity—a cycle that, inevitably, wrought Vidal with insecurity. At age twenty-six, with barely a grip on life, what lessons could he possibly offer a kid? Determined to alter the course for his child, Vidal did what he’d always done when confronted with life’s challenges—he turned to the counterculture. In Rap Dad, the musician-turned-journalist takes a thoughtful and inventive approach to exploring identity and examining how today’s society views fatherhood. To root out the source of his fears around parenting, Vidal revisits the flash points of his juvenescence, a feat that transports him, a first-generation American born to Colombian parents, back to the drug-fueled streets of 1980s–90s Miami. It’s during those pivotal years that he’s drawn to skateboarding, graffiti, and the music of rebellion: hip-hop. As he looks to the past for answers, he infuses his personal story with rap lyrics and interviews with some of pop culture’s most compelling voices—plenty of whom have proven to be some of society’s best, albeit nontraditional, dads. Along the way, Vidal confronts the unfair stereotypes that taint urban men—especially Black and Latino men. “A heartfelt examination of the damage that wayward fathers can leave in their wake” (The Washington Post), Rap Dad is “rich with symbolism…a poetic chronicle of beats, rhymes, and life” (NPR).

The Artist's Way of Preaching

The Artist's Way of Preaching
Author: Charles Denison
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Total Pages: 132
Release:
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780664235475

In our fast-paced multimedia age, Charles Denison argues, preachers need to turn to the use of images to capture and keep the listeners' attention. Denison shows how the preacher's imagination, intuition, and feelings can provide powerful resources for creating sermons that not only are fresh and interesting but also trigger evocative images in the minds of the congregation.

Noise and Spirit

Noise and Spirit
Author: Anthony B. Pinn
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2003-11
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0814766978

Rap music is often seen as a Black secular response to pressing issues of our time. Yet, like spirituals, the blues, and gospel music, rap has deep connections to African American religious traditions. Noise and Spirit explores the diverse religious dimensions of rap stemming from Islam (including the Nation of Islam and Five Percent Nation), Rastafarianism, and Humanism, as well as Christianity. The volume examines rap’s dialogue with religious traditions, from the ways in which Islamic rap music is used as a method of religious and political instruction to the uses of both the blues and Black women’s rap for considering the distinction between God and the Devil. The first section explores rap’s association with more easily recognizable religious traditions and communities such as Christianity and Islam. The next presents discussions of rap and important spiritual considerations, including on the topic of death. The final unit wrestles with ways to theologize about the relationship between the sacred and the profane in rap.

Jesus and the Hip-hop Prophets

Jesus and the Hip-hop Prophets
Author: Alex Gee
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 124
Release: 2003-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780830832347

John Teter and Alex Gee invite you to explore the world of Lauryn Hill, Tupac Shakur and the "hip-hop prophets"--following their lyrical messages to ultimate fulfillment at the feet of the Prophet-King Jesus.

Rap and Religion

Rap and Religion
Author: Ebony A. Utley
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2012-06-11
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0313376697

This book provides an enlightening, representative account of how rappers talk about God in their lyrics—and why a sense of religion plays an intrinsic role within hip hop culture. Why is the battle between good and evil a recurring theme in rap lyrics? What role does the devil play in hip hop? What exactly does it mean when rappers wear a diamond-encrusted "Jesus" around their necks? Why do rappers acknowledge God during award shows and frequently include prayers in their albums? Rap and Religion: Understanding the Gangsta's God tackles a sensitive and controversial topic: the juxtaposition—and seeming hypocrisy—of references to God within hip hop culture and rap music. This book provides a focused examination of the intersection of God and religion with hip hop and rap music. Author Ebony A. Utley, PhD, references selected rap lyrics and videos that span three decades of mainstream hip hop culture in America, representing the East Coast, the West Coast, and the South in order to account for how and why rappers talk about God. Utley also describes the complex urban environments that birthed rap music and sources interviews, award acceptance speeches, magazine and website content, and liner notes to further explain how God became entrenched in hip hop.

Street Scriptures

Street Scriptures
Author: Alejandro Nava
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2022-05-16
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0226819167

"The world of hip-hop is saturated with religion, but often this element is glossed over as secondary to hip-hop's other dimensions. In Street Scriptures, Alejandro Nava focuses our attention on this relationship in a fresh way, combining his profound love of hip-hop, his passion for racial and social justice, and his deep theological knowledge. The result is a journey through hip-hop's deep entanglement with the sacred. Street Scriptures examines the reasons behind the rise of a religious heartbeat in hip-hop, looking at the crosscurrents of the sacred and profane in rap, reggaeton, and Latinx hip-hop today. Ranging from Nas, Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, Lauryn Hill, and Cardi B to St. Augustine and William James, Nava examines the ethical-political, aesthetic-spiritual, and prophetic in hip-hop, probing the pure sonic and aesthetic signatures of music, while also diving deep into the voices that invoke the spirit of protest"--

Holy Hip Hop in the City of Angels

Holy Hip Hop in the City of Angels
Author: Christina Zanfagna
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2017-08-29
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0520296206

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In the 1990s, Los Angeles was home to numerous radical social and environmental eruptions. In the face of several major earthquakes and floods, riots and economic insecurity, police brutality and mass incarceration, some young black Angelenos turned to holy hip hop—a movement merging Christianity and hip hop culture—to “save” themselves and the city. Converting street corners to open-air churches and gangsta rap beats into anthems of praise, holy hip hoppers used gospel rap to navigate complicated social and spiritual realities and to transform the Southland’s fractured terrains into musical Zions. Armed with beats, rhymes, and bibles, they journeyed through black Lutheran congregations, prison ministries, African churches, reggae dancehalls, hip hop clubs, Nation of Islam meetings, and Black Lives Matter marches. Zanfagna’s fascinating ethnography provides a contemporary and unique view of black LA, offering a much-needed perspective on how music and religion intertwine in people's everyday experiences.