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Recently, I
had been intrigued, no stunned, by the recurring theme of
the Divine and Holy interspersed among “not so nice”
utterances by a young man during a mentoring session on
fatherhood. Dressed head to toe in a bright ensemble all of
one color to depict his neighborhood affiliation and
“tatted-up” to express his individuality and hardcore
identity, I certainly did not picture him as a choir boy.
I
spoke with Ebony Utley, Ph.D., concerning her forthcoming
book Rap and Religion: Understanding the Gangsta’s God
for insight on this and other controversial topics.
Perryman: What experiences shaped your perspective and thus
helped to give birth to the work, Rap and Religion?
Utley: I grew up a
fundamental Baptist in Indianapolis. There’s a story I tell
in the preface of the book about hearing rap music in the
church parking lot after 11:00 church service and how I knew
as a teenager, that that was clearly “against the rules” and
yet it was kind of cool.
My mother used to tell me
that I could listen to rap music as long as I had memorized
as many songs from the hymnal as I had rap lyrics. I never
quite made it, but my mother had lots of rules about you can
have rap music but it should never become more important
than your religious life.
I was always toeing that
line and I realized that many rappers were toeing similar
lines in their lyrics so that rap music and gospel music
serve the same purpose. They both were there for people
going through hard times. So Tupac’s “Keep Your Head Up”
was just as useful as Dorothy’s “Precious Lord” as far as I
was concerned.
Then, at Northwestern
University I was studying abolitionist, civil rights and
black power rhetoric because I was fascinated with how young
urban black people were using language to advocate for
social change. I realized that rap lyrics were the place
that young, urban, black people were using language to get
at social change, so I shifted to my attention to rap music
and how rappers talked to God. The rest was pretty much
history.
Perryman: Have you
considered the biblical icon King David, described as “a man
after God’s own heart,” but who was young and rich with an
abundance of women at his beck and call, had a long-running
public “beef” with a rival, and shared a very similar
lifestyle as today’s gangstas, including murder, intrigue,
and family drama?
Utley: Yes. There’s a
phrase one of my colleagues uses that I think sums this up
appropriately. He always says it’s an “and - without
contradiction.” I think David was a character that’s all of
those things that you listed about him, and - without
contradiction. He was a lover of God, and a lustful
murderer, a poet and a fighter.
I think to understand
complex characters like David, to understand a lot of the
complex rappers, you really have to get outside of these
good/bad, right/wrong dichotomies because they’re simply not
useful. Instead we’ve got to think of them as very complex
layered human beings who do different things at different
times for different reasons. I mean God is different things
to different people at different times for different
reasons. So, if we’re looking for a box to put God in or a
box to put these complex characters in we’re not going to
find that.
Perryman: How does Rap
& Religion speak to today’s young fathers or the
contemporary problem of father absence?
Utley: There’s intense
desire for a physically and/or emotionally absent father and
yet having been denied it, results in compromises.
Last time I checked, I
think the numbers were 70 percent of African-American kids
were born to single mothers. So there’s a strong desire for
[father figures] in the ‘hood and it’s often times filled by
surrogate fathers. In best-case scenarios, by surrogate
fathers who are grandfathers, uncles, cousins and pastors,
or mentors. But in the worst case, by pimps, hustlers and
folks involved in actual illegal activities.
But there’s also a kind of
a “Daddy God” and what’s interesting about how youth and
rappers talk about Daddy God is that even though it’s God,
their relationships are still imperfect. I like that because
it reflects human relationships. So its like 50 Cent says in
“Many Men:” “you pray to God, and He don’t say nothing back
so I still have to stay with my “gat.”
And I imagine that as kind
of being like a young boy who prays for his daddy to come
home and his daddy doesn’t come home so he’s still got to do
what he has to do. And a lot of times Daddy God operates the
same way, you’re asking these pressing questions and your
answer is silence.
The message is, and it’s
not about the answer, it’s about the asking of the question
that helps grow you up into a man. So that you’re no longer
just acting out or angry or can’t articulate your feelings
but that you can freely ask the question and know that
having asked, whether you get an answer or not, you’ve
matured.
Ebony Utley, Ph.D. is an
associate professor of communications studies at California
State University Long Beach. Her writing has appeared in a
variety of high-profile publications.
Contact
Rev. Dr. Donald Perryman at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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