Comments on: Hip Hop Has Saved My Soul (and Spirituality) http://gatheringforces.org/2009/10/21/hip-hop-has-saved-my-soul-and-spirituality/ I'm a force by myself but we're a movement when we're together Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:08:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Krisna http://gatheringforces.org/2009/10/21/hip-hop-has-saved-my-soul-and-spirituality/comment-page-1/#comment-128 Krisna Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:11:08 +0000 http://gatheringforces.org/?p=716#comment-128 I reposted this piece as well on our blog D&HHP with the intro: "I'm reposting this note that I was tagged in from my Facebook page. It is from a very good friend of mine in Seattle, BYC, who I and LBoogie also collaborate with (among several other good folks) on a new blog called Gathering Forces which I hope all of you will read and participate in too. This is a very introspective and striking essay that means a lot to me on a very personal level. Personal, because everyone has their own story of how hip-hop has transformed them. In the case of BYC, as a conservative youth evangelist who was repelled from hip-hop due to its apparent violence and patriarchy, to his process of becoming a revolutionary who finds within hip-hop a deep sense of spirituality and struggle and not the cartoonish and proselytizing forms we see with Jin, Toby Mac, or still worse manifestations. My history and sense of alienation from Christianity as a youth for its missionary vibe, its judgmental predisposition, and its straight-up racism, found legitimation in the lyrics of hip-hop music which many times raged against the contradictions and historical crimes of official Christianity. Through it I've found that hip-hop has sent up, in an uneven and contradictory way, the from-below tradition of spirituality (including within Islam, NOI, 5% NOI) that saw saving one's soul as engaging in the fight against injustice. Over time, as my own politics and perspectives matured and deepened, hip-hop went with me expressing a vast range of conflicting ideas and sensibilities and each time I found a way to make it relevant to my specific place in life. Read and digest this essay carefully for it is one of the most original contributions to hip-hop that I have ever read." I reposted this piece as well on our blog D&HHP with the intro:

“I’m reposting this note that I was tagged in from my Facebook page. It is from a very good friend of mine in Seattle, BYC, who I and LBoogie also collaborate with (among several other good folks) on a new blog called Gathering Forces which I hope all of you will read and participate in too.

This is a very introspective and striking essay that means a lot to me on a very personal level. Personal, because everyone has their own story of how hip-hop has transformed them. In the case of BYC, as a conservative youth evangelist who was repelled from hip-hop due to its apparent violence and patriarchy, to his process of becoming a revolutionary who finds within hip-hop a deep sense of spirituality and struggle and not the cartoonish and proselytizing forms we see with Jin, Toby Mac, or still worse manifestations.

My history and sense of alienation from Christianity as a youth for its missionary vibe, its judgmental predisposition, and its straight-up racism, found legitimation in the lyrics of hip-hop music which many times raged against the contradictions and historical crimes of official Christianity. Through it I’ve found that hip-hop has sent up, in an uneven and contradictory way, the from-below tradition of spirituality (including within Islam, NOI, 5% NOI) that saw saving one’s soul as engaging in the fight against injustice. Over time, as my own politics and perspectives matured and deepened, hip-hop went with me expressing a vast range of conflicting ideas and sensibilities and each time I found a way to make it relevant to my specific place in life.

Read and digest this essay carefully for it is one of the most original contributions to hip-hop that I have ever read.”

]]> By: Mamos http://gatheringforces.org/2009/10/21/hip-hop-has-saved-my-soul-and-spirituality/comment-page-1/#comment-125 Mamos Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:52:13 +0000 http://gatheringforces.org/?p=716#comment-125 When I read this, it brought tears to my eyes - it is some of the freshest theology I've read in years. I've studied liberation theology, and Yun Cheng and I have practiced the arts of liberation in the streets but it's been hard to bring those two worlds together. Sometimes the most eloquent shouts of liberation aren't obviously theological and usually liberal-progressive academic theology just simply isn't liberating. I agree with Yun Cheng about hip hop though - it is probably one of the clearest expressions of deep currents of American liberation theology, remixing and sampling earlier traditions running back through soul, gospel, the classic spirituals, the music of Black Power back through the abolitionists back to that original creative fusion of radical reformation, African, and indigenous spirituality that has always chanted down Babylon here in the Americas. I also posted this on my blog "From the Desert, Under Constantine", which covers religious and spiritual questions: http://spiritualdesert.blogspot.com/ When I read this, it brought tears to my eyes – it is some of the freshest theology I’ve read in years. I’ve studied liberation theology, and Yun Cheng and I have practiced the arts of liberation in the streets but it’s been hard to bring those two worlds together. Sometimes the most eloquent shouts of liberation aren’t obviously theological and usually liberal-progressive academic theology just simply isn’t liberating. I agree with Yun Cheng about hip hop though – it is probably one of the clearest expressions of deep currents of American liberation theology, remixing and sampling earlier traditions running back through soul, gospel, the classic spirituals, the music of Black Power back through the abolitionists back to that original creative fusion of radical reformation, African, and indigenous spirituality that has always chanted down Babylon here in the Americas.

I also posted this on my blog “From the Desert, Under Constantine”, which covers religious and spiritual questions:
http://spiritualdesert.blogspot.com/

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