ARTICLES
NOVEMBER 2004 ARTICLES
Contents © 2004
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Behold, I am No Wolf
Crossing the Threshold of Hip-Hop Hope
BY JAMES MCCOY
Kids, when it comes to Christian hip-hop music, beware of prophets who come to you in wolf's clothing but inwardly are evangelizing sheep.
Once there was a sheep that considered that, if only he could run with wolves, he would convince them to decrease their depredations. By constant contact with him, so he thought, the wolves would, little by little, become less wolfish. And so, cloaking himself in a wolf skin, so that he would fit in, the sheep took up with a wolf pack.
But before he had a chance to improve their character very much (that is to say, make it more sheepish), the wolves were off and running, having spotted a flock of sheep. As they chased it up the hill, one poor little lamb got left behind. The pack of wolves made straight for it.
Now all during this hot pursuit the sheep disguised as a wolf had hung back, sheepishly. This did not go unnoticed by the wolves and so, when they had surrounded the lamb, they thrust the wolvering sheep into the center of the circle too.
"Don't kill him!" the sheep cried, horrified at the fate of the poor innocent lamb by his side. "Eat me instead: for behold, I am no wolf!" And with that he threw back his wolf skin.
But the wolves just stood there grinning. They licked their lips as they eyed both the sheep and the lamb. "W-way to g-go," said the trembling lamb. "Not only d-didn't you d-decrease their d-depredations, you've actually m-managed to d-double them."
In the spirit of the lamb, let's take a look at the world of Gospel Hip-Hop.
Doom, gloom -- that's rap's tomb, trap. Gang, bang, shake yo thang, ho: this is hip-hop's mishap: Drugs, thugs -- "here's earplugs, dear."
While some Christians make the best of hip-hop music thus, others -- artists and entrepreneurs, even a Catholic priest -- are breaking and entering into this urban stronghold which has captivated youthful imaginations.
"Hip-hop and rap are capturing the younger demographic," said Jason Hollins of Edison Media Research. "In particular, this genre has really taken hold of the teens and young adults." Four years ago, the Somerville, New Jersey-based company, which provides strategic information to radio stations and other media, surveyed 12- to 24-year-olds. It found: 49 percent listen to hip-hop frequently; it's equally popular for young men and young women; while much more popular for African-Americans and Hispanics, it's still the most popular music by far for Whites; there's a "wall" at age 25, beyond which taste for hip-hop drops off. The report's conclusion found its way into the title: "The Hip-Hop Generation Gap: Hip-hop is taking over."
"And what's really scary about it," said Father Stan Fortuna, "is every now and then there's elements of truth in it." Having grown up in Yonkers, New York, Father Stan now lives in the South Bronx with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. Before he heard the call to Father Benedict Groeschel's new order, he was a musician. Now Father Stan actualizes both gifts by performing original hip-hop songs with an evangelistic edge. (His global schedule of gigs includes a November 10 one in Sacramento at the Catholic Professional and Business Breakfast Club.)
"But Satan can manifest himself as an angel of light," Father Stan went on. "So you got people that look real good that are miserable, that's putting garbage out by looking good. So it's the old story: You can't judge a book by its cover.... So if people are gonna get the wrong idea -- you can get the wrong idea about anything. And I don't think we can be afraid of that. As long as we're really clear Who we're standing for and what we're about."
A murmuration of Catholic hip-hop artists, including Father Stan, can be found at www.phatmass.com. The number of Christian hip-hop artists is legion.
"If you got Christian artists out there," Father Stan went on, "you know, showing their bellies, wearing risqué clothes --"
"But how then can you win over the hip-hop generation without employing its fashions?" I asked.
"Who says you have to employ the fashions? Who says?"
"Then why do hip-hop at all? Why not use a musical genre that's already been christened?
"-- Like what?" asked Father Stan.
Good point. Later, in an esprit de l'escalier, I thought: Gospel music, maybe?
Yet Nicole Smith, who loves singing in the Gospel choir at the Spirit of Truth Church, corner of South Figueroa and 98th Street in Los Angeles, was among the first to see the need for a Christian hip-hop venue. Nicole and her fellow churchgoer Carla Yorke were the impresarios behind the Holy Hip Hop concert series held at the University of Southern California's Ground Zero Coffeehouse last summer.
"Gospel hip-hop is, I think, just an extension of Christians talking about their relationship with Christ," Nicole said. "It happens to be rappers -- I don't know that it's anything more than that. I think September 11 kind of shook people up: it was the first time, in a long time, that it was okay to say, 'God Bless America.' We didn't get as far as Jesus, but we did get to God.... So it's a good time for Christian hip-hop. Especially now that a very commercial artist, an artist that has influence on the radio, has gotten his song 'Jesus Walks' on the radio." (The song, by Kanye West, was number two on the Billboard hip-hop chart in mid-August.) "But I don't know I would call him a Gospel rapper; I would call him a secular rapper, but he has a song about his relationship with Jesus."
For her day job, Nicole works for a nonprofit, low-income housing organization. "I get the folks together to actually build the buildings." But creating and owning her own business is her dream. Nicole graduated in 1998 with a degree in entrepreneurship from USC's business school; it was there, in fact, that she and Carla met. In 2002 they founded Truth Entertainment, Inc.
"The heart of it is just to provide a place for young Christians to hang out at night, to provide an alternative to the nightlife in Los Angeles," Nicole said. (More than 100 turned out for the July event.) "For me and my business partner, it was important for us to have a safe environment, for young ladies especially, where you can just hang out and laugh and talk with your girlfriends and possibly meet some new friends and never feel forced."
"Are there any hip-hop fashions in dress that Christians should steer clear of?" I asked.
"I believe," Nicole replied, "and this is the way that I've been taught in my church -- I believe it's true word from God that we can do anything if we've achieved that level of spiritual maturity. I would never discourage someone coming in the event for not wearing something in particular. I think God'll change you as He sees fit. There's no method of clothing that has any power over me.
"I think that people generally know that when they hear Gospel Hip-hop that there's certain things that they're not gonna do," Nicole went on. "They know how to keep themselves in line. But I wouldn't say that there's any type of clothing that you shouldn't wear. I think that people learn lessons.
"We haven't had a situation where there was anybody that was just totally out of order. And I guess totally out of order would be -- some of the things I see at a secular club -- a shirt that's basically a bra or all of your midsection showing or really short shorts or a short skirt. And it hasn't been that way. Most of the crowd, I believe, has had some type of church experience, so they know how [to keep] a certain level of decorum."
Nicole described the scene in the USC coffeehouse as "not pretentious in any way.... There's not any lyrics to make anybody uncomfortable."
That's because she and Carla vet the artists before they book them: "we hear them; we get a bio and kind of read up on their background." Nevertheless, " we've had a few edgy things that have gone down." During the open mike part of the show, any hip-hop artist can perform. The rules are "no cursing, no use of the n-word, and no hogging the microphone," Nicole said. "But I did notice in the [July] show, after we blessed the mike, the first artist on stage said it" -- the n-word.
Besides profanity and racial slurs, there's yet another way of being offensive -- to some people. And that's, as St. Paul put it, to "put on the mind of Christ" rather than the hip-hop mindset. "Our lyrics are very up-front and in-your-face," said 2Five, "we don't try to hide nothing. I know the word of God is offensive, but I praise God for that. Because if it wasn't offensive, it wouldn't convict; nobody would change."
Now pushing 30 and a nondenominational Christian, 2Five grew up on the streets of L.A. The hip-hop scene was his whole world. "When I was about 17, I came in contact with record people that were very notable in the secular industry of hip-hop," he said. "So I made a name for myself; I started making some money early on in the game. So I was really trapped in that world for a long time."
This feeling of being trapped is very common, according to 2Five, a self-described "little guy," whose stage name alludes to Jesus' working a miracle with a little to feed a whole lot. "A lot of times they get trapped in that world because they're following a fad, a trend. They feel that, unless you dress this way, you won't be accepted as hip-hop. And the hip-hop culture has set up a high bar, both in how you dress and the money you have to have in order to afford those [fads]. And so what happens is after a while, deep down inside, they know they're trapped. They know that they're spending all their money to look cool -- and for what?
"So for these people, when we speak, it's a refreshing voice that they're hearing," he concluded.
"See now," Father Stan, the rapping priest, agreed. "when you get away from the music and you start getting into fashion, into dress and the visuals, that's when we gotta maintain [Christian] tradition; just like when we get to the musical, we don't use their language. We're not using the f-word; we' re not using derogatory terms for people's race and color and for different people's sexuality; and we're not disrespecting women. When the truth is being served: that's what's gonna speak to people.... And the cool thing about hip-hop is its rhythm and rhyme; it's just fun, it's a fun genre.... It 's like poetry in motion. And it's just a powerful means to express stuff "
"But on the one hand," I diplomatically began, "you gotta be cool and worldly; on the other, Christian and otherwordly --"
"-- Who says I gotta be worldly," he shouted. "Who says?"
"Okay -- maybe worldly isn't the right word. But how you gonna reach the cool kids unless you're cool too?"
"But being alive with the fullness of life in this world is worldly and cool in the best sense of the word," Father Stan replied in that rapid-fire way of his. "And so you're making a presumption.... What's gonna get a hearing, man, is the truth's gonna get a hearing and you know what? You're not gonna get a hearing.
"People don't wanta hear what I gotta say," he went on. "People don't wanta play my stuff on the mainstream. I got an MTV-level video of my song, 'Everybody Got 2 Suffer'.... We're trying to get it out there, to get it on all kinds of cable TV networks, not just Christian and Catholic. Whose mainstream gonna touch that?"
That would seem to prove the skeptics about Christian hip-hop are right until one reflects that a song about how everybody has to suffer is going be a tough sell -- anywhere. I asked Father Stan for conversion stories from his hip-hop apostolate.
"Oh yeah, I got tons of them," he replied. "Actually, with regards to abortion. There's one time [the woman] didn't even hear the music, [she] just read the lyrics; and this woman went into tears. She had had eight abortions; and she cried for about seven hours straight. I wasn't even there."
"What was the name of the song?"
"That's a song called 'Never Been Born,' which is on Sacro Song. And I had another situation where I was doing that song live and in public, and a woman, again, was crying, and it really just put her face to face... She almost had a mystical experience in really being healed by God's mercy, and realizing that her child was alive and still in heaven. Because the lyrics of the song embrace the whole Catholic doctrine of the communion of the saints and the intercommunion between the earthly life and the heavenly life and the earthly realities and the heavenly realities. And it just hit her really, really powerfully.
"Then I again I got a song about suicide called 'Kumbaya' -- I did a rewrite of 'Kumbaya'-- it's on the Sacro Song CD. And that one has caused tremendous, tremendous positive impacts on the many young people who've intended to commit suicide, who are thinking about committing suicide; it's been a preventative thing in many, many cases.
"Matter of fact," Father Stan remembered in his rat-tat-tat fashion, "a lot of times the [Franciscan Renewal] brothers, when they go to do pro-life work in front of the abortion mills, and they see some young men out there listening to music, and they're listening to rap music while they go to drop their girlfriends off to go get an abortion.
"And [the friars] say: 'Hey man, whatchyou listening to?'
"And they say: 'I'm listening to rap music.'
"And they say: 'Check this rap music out?'
"'What is it?'
"'It's a rap song; check it out.'
"They put it on. There were a couple of situations where the guy went in and grabbed his girlfriend and took her out," Father Stan said.
Thanks to holy hip-hop, a couple of innocent lambs at least were saved.