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Black preacher - white Jesus
Images of Jesus in hip hop culture.

Paper presented at Rostocker Forum III October 4-7 2000 by Carl Petter Opsahl

black athletes – white agents
black preacher – white Jesus
black monday – white christmas
black success story – white wife
black police – white judges
white mans heaven is a black mans hell

These lines depicts a society that are strongly divided along racial lines. Although african-americans formally have the same rights as every other americans in the United States, the racial divide are still socially and economically evident. As Public Enemy explains, you might find african-american entertainers and athletes hosting their own television-show, you might find african-americans in leading positions in political and social life. But the real power is still white. No matter how much money the african-american artist earn, their white agent earns much more. Public Enemy reveals how popular images of "Black" and "white" are manifest in language, where black have negative connotations, while "white" tends to have positive connotations. Signs of success for a black man is to gain the same things as the white man, such as a white wife. In this picture, Public Enemy places Jesus on the white side. The white man has drawn Jesus in his own image, so that Jesus has become a representative of a culture and a system that has suppresssed the african americans through centuries.

Christianity and Islam
Christianity and the church has traditionally made up a sifgnificant part of african american culture. This is recognisable in the music, whre the gospel tradition has made an impact on secular musical expressions such as rythm and blues and soul. Here it should be sufficient to mention the music of Ray Charles and James Brown as examples. The Church has also played an important role in the struggle for social and political rights, such as the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties. But from the middle of the sixties, the church are challenged by more militant political currents. The non-violence ideal wich was previvalent in the fifties and sixties got a serious blow with the assassins of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, jr. The social conditions for african-americans and latino-americans in the inner cities like Los Angeles and New York worsened throughout the seventies and under the Reagan administration in the eighties, wich made way for militant political movements such as the Black Panthers and gangs inspired by their doctrine.

In this perspective, christianity was looked upon as the religion of the white power, and the church was viewed as an instrument for passifying the african-american population with a preaching focused on heaven and not the problems of the real world. For many political oriented activists Islam seemed to be a more suitful alternative. But the kind of Islam that many african-americans turned to, was very different from the more mainstream Islam movements we know. The Nation of Islam was founded in 1930 by W. D Fard, who promoted a kind of Islam inspired by black nationalist theories and occult and esoteric sources, and ony indirectly be the Qu'ran. Central to their doctrine was revelations given to Fard, published as "Lost and Found Moslem Lessons". One of the central doctrines of his teachings was that the humankind are divided in three parts, where 85 % of all humans are recognized as uncivilized, meat eaters and mental slaves due to their mental death. 10 % are the rich, those who makes slaves of te poor and suppress them with lies, such as that God is a ghost residing in the sky. The final 5 % are the Poor Righteous Teachers, poor but wise teachers that learn humankind freedom, teachers that know the living God. Fard was followed by Elijah Mohammad, and under his leadership Nation Of Islam underwent major changes, the organisational structure wasmodernized and the ideology politicized. Today, Nation Of Islam is a major religious, political and social movement in The United States, headed by Minister Louis Farrakhan. Another, quite similar Islamic organisation is the Five Percenters, an offspring from the Nation of Islam

A lot of rappers express express inspiration from Islam in one way or another. On a lot of album covers we find thanks to Allah or greetings to muslim leaders such as Louis Farrakhan, and in lyrics we find hints to or regular quotations from muslim doctrine. Among the more typical islam inspired teachings found in rap lyrics are the notion that heaven and hell are not places in the hereafter, but mental conditions, and that each individual is god or has god within himself.

But Christianity is still a major influence in African-American culture, and we also find rap artists who thanks Jesus on their album covers. In commercial rap magazines such as The Source, you can at times find testimonies and conversion stories. Female rapper MC Lyte tells in one interview about how she was approached by God sitting in a nightclub, suddenly feeling that she was filled. And the conversion of Run from the legendary group Run DMC is public knowledge and part of the official biography presented in lexica, magazine interviews and web sites. He is now working as a minister, and recently published his autobiography "It's like that. A spiritual memoir."

Hip hop movements
Hip hop culture is a melting pot culture, where elements from many sources are mixed and transformed to make new expressions. This is evident in all of the four basic elements of hip hop culture: rapping, dj'ing, breaking and graffiti. The dj samples parts from a variety of sources when putting a track together, a drum groove from one recording, a guitar-riff from another, and she might throw in a soundclip from television adverts or sounds from the streets. In break dance we find elements from traditional african or latino african dances together with moves from contemporary popular dances. The graffiti writer, or the aerosol artist as she is also called, find inspiration in comics and advertisement as well from the traditional "in-door art". The same flexiblility in mixing sources applies to rapping, wich is the term of the specific way the lyrics are recitated with emphasis on rythm and rhyme. The rapper use whatever material at hand in creating fluent rhymes and killer metaphors.

Basic values in hip hop culture, at least as it is found among more dedicated hip hopper's, is a social consciousness combined with emphasis on the importance of individuality. This is also evident in the many images of Jesus found in hip hop culture. One does not automatically buy the Jesus preached in the traditional religious institutions, but offers a critical view on the traditional images of Jesus as well as creating new ones. The hip hop organisation The Zulu Nation, founded by dj and rapper Afrika Bambaataa in the middle of the seventies, offers a good example. This organisation, who was founded as a non-violent alternative to gangs, promote knowledge about hip hop culture and a better understanding of social conditions. They held that society has to undergo major changes in order to make it a better place for all humans. The educational system, for instance, has thaught eurocentric and white ideas. The same goes for religious institutions. The Zulu Nation is a cross-religious movement, positive to all kinds of worshipping as long as it is not oppressive. In their doctrine one can read that they believe in One God, called by many names, such as Allah, the Creator, Jahve and Jah. They recognize the Bible, the Qu'ran and all the scriptures of Gods prophets as sacred. But these scriptures has been tampered with by the religious institutions and has to be interpreted again. White preachers and others who promote "white supremacy" has for instance taught that God, Jesus Christ, the prophets and the angels are white. The Zulu Nation also helds that the aim of all religions should be to uplift human beings and be in the forefront in the fight against racism and social injustice.

Similar ideas are found in the rapper KRS-Ones project H.E.A.L, an acronym for Human Education Against Lies. His concern is that lack of knowledge and understanding are the main source of problems in society today. His slogan is "Before you are a race, a religion or an occupation, you are a Human. Heal yourself!" The most lethal desease in the world today is not AIDS, according to KRS-One, but CSDS Common Sence Deficiency Syndrom, and the virus is spread by those suffering from PhD, Psychological Human Disorder — you can see rappers predilection for wordplay at work. KRS-One and H.E.A.L believes that there is one God and that God is close to each human being. But he is critical towards holy scriptures. God, "the creator of the universe is alive and conscious and manifest in all that has life". Books are dead, and God lives nor in the Bible, nor in the Qu'ran, Bhavadgita, Torah or any other scripture. God is life and God is love. Those who seek and respect God, should seek and respect life. The Bible can be a good story and a good source for knowledge, but those who wants to find God should put the Bible aside and meditate in a silent room. KRS-One does not recommend going to church, since boring services are forcing people away from God. He depicts Jesus as a revolutionary with to basic teachings: love your brother and love yourself. He says that most christians forget that Jesus was a revolutionary who "hung out with criminals and deseased people, trying to educate them on a better way of life. He spoke out against the system and was killed". Since we don't learn to ask questions, there are no one who quations Jesus as being white. "It doesn't matter what color Jesus was unntil you change the color". These doctrines were published in a smal booklet intended for distribution on concerts. Rappers that joined the H.E.A.L.-movement includes LL Cool J, MC Lyte and Queen Latifah.

Fishin' for religion
After this survey of some general thoughts about religion and Jesus found in hip hop culture, lets turn to a couple of rap tunes and see how Jesus and church are depicted there. The first song is by the group Arrested Development, called "Fishin' for religion"

Sound example 1: Fishin' for religion, by Arrested Development

The rapper tells about a passifying church, who worship a bleak God. Their God is a suffering God, and a God that suffers together with those who suffers, but who does not do anything about the suffering. When they want change, their minister says "shout it". But to shout does not change anything, it only makes you lose your voice. The only thing this church can make you do, is sleep, says Arrested Development

Still, the rapper wants to try once more, and goes to church once more. This time he sees a minister who tells a woman that everything will be all right in the end. He paints the pearly gates before her eyes. The woman prays and prays and prays — the word "pray" are repeated several times to underline the absurdity of her prayers. The rapper says it's nothing wrong with praying, it's what you ask for:

She's askin' the Lord to cope, so one day she can
see the golden ropes
What you pray for God will give, to be able to cope
in this world we live

But as the rapper continue: "the word cope and the word change/is directly opposite not the same". The woman should have asked God for a change in her life. Instead the minister encouraged her to be patient and have strength to cope with her situation. And now the rapper becomes more specific in his critique, saying that this is why the government is so happy with the Baptist Churches: Because they do nothing to encourage brothers and sister to join the revolution. They only teach that the solution lies in death. This leads to passiveness, and "passiveness causes others to pass us by".

To Zion
A more positive image of Jesus, but still with critical elements, arefound in the lyrics of Lauryn Hill. Lauryn Hill is among the most successful hip hop. Her debut album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was the most selling album in the United States in the year of its release, 1998, and it earned her four Grammys. Before turning to that album, lets pay attention to one of her earlier raps with the group The Fugees, called "The Temple".

Sound example, "The Temple" by The Fugees

In this excerpt Lauryn Hill tells us that she grew up as a baptist and learned that God sendt his onlybegotten Son, to make shure I got to Heaven. But as she grew older, she found out that the baptists were not the only ones believing in God, she met jews, catholics and protestants, after a while also representatives from other religions. As she raps: "Jehova or Buddha or shall I call You Allah or ... the Heavenly Brother/I just want to be a scholar/on the subject theology." The problem with the many christians is that they earlier has suppressed blacks, as she puts it: "those who called them self christians/used to call me nigga".

One can find religious traits throughout the album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The song "Forgive them Father" starts out with a quotation from the Lords prayer: "Forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those that trespass against us" and the refrain quotes Jesus' last words at the cross: "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do." But I would like to concentrate on the song "To Zion", wich is dedicated to her son. She sings about being pregnant and a career woman at the same time. The people around her tells her to use her head and think about her caréer. Instead she chooses to follow her heart and gives birth to her son, wich she names Zion. In the background we hear a gospel choir sing "Now the joy of my world is in Zion" and "Marching, marching, marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion". although we know that Zion is the name of her son, it's hard to overlook the religious connotation of this refrain, wich is a paraphrase over the old hymn "We're Maching to Zion" by Isaac Watts. She continue to describe her pregnancy, using the Annunciation of Mary as a metaphor, underlining the religious connotations "An angel came one day/told me to kneel down and pray/For unto me a man child would be born." It's her son that has chosen her, and her son reflects the grace of God:

I thank you for choosing me
To come through unto life to be
A beautiful reflection of His grace
For I know that a gift so great
Is only One God could create

Her son is also God's own son. There are many elements here from christian tradition, but there are also reasons to believe that this song also is inspired by rastafarianism, wich has had an impact outside of Jamaica mainly because of the influence of reggae music. Zion, an old designation for the holy city and a metaphor for the eternal city, the city of God, is also an important image in rastafarianism and reggae music, where it is held that Messias will be born on the montain Zion, wich they locate in Ethiopia. The godname "Is only one God" is typical of rastafarianism, with their emphasis on the letter I. The album cover is also very similar to a cover by the legendary reggae-artist Bob Marley found on his Burning". If we also take into the consideration that the granddaddy of Lauryn Hills son is Bob Marley, the jamaican connection should be clear enough.

© 2000 carl petter opsahl