a reformed rapper…
I don’t like rap music. I have never liked rap. I tried rap a few times, but I can only say that I listened to rap twice. I don’t think either time counts. My first real experience with rap was listening to Run-DMC. I don’t think it counts. I only listened to Run-DMC because they were rapping an Aerosmith song. It can’t count because Aerosmith is a bunch of white guys who weren’t rappers beyond the occasional line or two that was rapped to create cross-over appeal.
The second time I listened to rap was during the One Bad Pig phase of my not-so-Christian Christian walk. OBP didn’t count for two reasons. First, I figure that OBP wasn’t really rap. But, they did yell and screamed a lot and they didn’t sing much, so it seemed like rap to me. The second reason OBP didn’t count was that I wasn’t listening to it for the music. I was listening to it because I wanted other people to hear me listening to it. It was outrageous, but Christian! I only did this because I was making a point. I don’t know what the point was. I’m sure that whatever the point was the point wasn’t a good one. I think it was my way of railing against the man, the independent fundamentalist version of the man. Yeah, that is just about as pathetic as it sounds…So, if I had really tried rap, I’d probably would have liked it to the extent that the man didn’t, if that makes sense.
My dislike for rap doesn’t come from a belief that rap is inherently evil. Much of rap and rap culture was, and probably still is, though I wouldn’t know, evil. I’d have to work hard to define any form of music as evil, but rap for me was nowhere near the line. Besides, labeling rap inherently evil would have been completely hypocritical for someone who listened to as much classic rock and 1980’s big-hair-bands as I did. I might have liked classic rock’s version of evil more than rap’s version of evil, but Jesus probably sees it as pretty much the same in the end. I don’t like rap because I don’t like to listening to it. It is hard for me to hear it as music, in much the same way that I have a hard time hearing clanging, twingy, pingy Indian and Asian music as music. For that matter, I’d say about as much for orthodox Jewish music. It is noise when I hear it. As the mostly wicked movie taught, I can listen to the music, but I can’t hear the music.
These are the facts I was fine living with. I could simply say in one sentence that I don’t do rap and could walk away from the conversation. But, today I had to reconsider. I might have made two fundamental mistakes in giving rap a bad rap. (Like you didn’t expect that pun…)
I tried the wrong rap. The rap that broke out into popular culture was wrong. People who didn’t love Jesus had serious moral and sociological issues with the lifestyle and culture that mainstream rap advocated. Tough to redeem. I didn’t need to or want to listen to songs of anger, pride, fatalism, sex, violence, degradation of women, and gang mentality. At least I didn’t want to hear it in rap songs. In fairness, much of my musical diet during the late-80’s and the entire 90’s might have included most of these themes. It would seem that I just liked a different sound to my sin. Still, rap as I knew it was wrong rap.
The second mistake was not knowing how to hear rap. I listened to rap, but I didn’t hear rap. I listened to the music and couldn’t hear the words. The words were moving too fast, and with the music not much louder than the words, how was I supposed to listen to the music and keep up? I think that with rap you are supposed to hear the words first and then listen to the music. Given that you can find most of the musical side of rap in other musical genres, the thing that makes rap rap is the lyrics and the lyrical approach. Rap is about words. It is about words as much or more than music. Words lead and music is context. Rap is first heard through the words and not the song.
Perhaps my challenge with rap comes from that fact that this isn’t how I listen to music. When I buy a new disk I want to hear the whole disk through. On the first trip through I’ve already decided I like this song and that song based on the music that hooks me. I might pick up a few cool lyrics and lines on the first trip through, but mainly it is the music. It will take weeks to figure out the lyrics to the songs, often after cheating and using the cd jacket. I take nothing from lyrics and their importance. I like deep and meaningful lyrics. I like lyrics that take time and repetition to unpack. I believe lyrics are important and powerful, for good and evil. I do not think music is inherently flawed if I don’t get all the lyrics the first time through. The point is that in my experience and musical taste, most times I’m trying to figure out the words of the song long after I’ve identified with the music. To overstate the point, sometimes the words in song are more like bonus points. They are an integral and powerful add-on to something even more important, the music itself. (How else can one explain the pervasive presence of muzak?!)
It is here that I was challenged most today. Let us assume it is possible to find redeemed rap, even reformed rap. Let’s call it right rap. Right rap would make me think twice about rap.
I’ve already stated that I didn’t reject rap out-of-hand based on it being an inherently evil musical genre. If I did so, I’d have to toss out all secular music (for the independent fundamentalists, remember that this would include a lot of the classical stuff and some of the country and western) along with any Christian music that goes beyond psalms and maybe hymns played on anything other than pianos and maybe unplugged acoustic guitars. Now that I think about it, I would have to toss the hymns because some of the old ones were set to traditional (think pop culture) pub (think bar) tunes. And the guitar, well, the Devil used the guitar that was once acoustical and he made it electrical. Must mean there is something inherently evil in the guitar, so we’d better not risk it. Then again, the Devil used a fiddle in Georgia, so we might have to eliminate the fiddle and folk music too. And, a fiddle looks a lot like a violin, so we might want to get rid of those too. Of course, violins are a big part of classical music, so that probably proves the Devil is in violins and we were right to toss out classical music because it was secular to begin with…Of course, in doing this I would have completely have violated the scriptural principle found in said Psalms that we are to create a new song, but sometimes we just have to suffer for our beliefs…
Still, saying that I don’t reject rap on principle isn’t the same as saying I gave right rap respect. Some argue that right rap is closer to sermon than right rock, because right rap is defined by words. It is sermon in song not songs with sermons. If right rap is a sermon, the definition of good rap is based on how the words connect to the Word. Could right words make rap right? Put another way, how do we know if the punk rock-type screaming Pastor is more or less right than the John Denver-type wussy voiced Pastor is right more or less than the country music-type good-ol’ boy drawl Pastor is right?
If it is true that there is right rap then I have to think about what I’m missing because I stopped listening to rap because of rap music. This might be the exact problem. Perhaps I need to listen to the rap, and then worry about listening to the music. Maybe when right rap connects with my head the music will sound different. Maybe it won’t. But, even if it doesn’t I still might learn something. This might be the redeeming value of rap. As long as it is right rap I should learn something before I turn it off. You’d have to. The words are out in front. Rap is defined by words and the use of words. Words create ideas. And, Alister McGrath, in Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, states that “Ideas shape actions and attitudes.” If hip hop and rap are a cultures that need Jesus, there would seem to be a role for right rap and rappers. Put another way, how would hip hop respond to the screamer? the wuss? or the good-’ol boy?
Jesus can redeem anything He chooses to redeem. I found out today that there really is such a thing as a reformed rapper. I don’t mean reformed in the sense of he’s out of rehab and living a clean life reformed. I mean that the doctrinal underpinning of the life and lyrics of the rapper come from the protestant reformed school of thought–the Luther vs. Zwingli and Calvin vs. Jacobus Arminius (such a cool name you have to use them both…) style of predestination, justification by faith, big God/little man theology school of thought. C.H. Spurgeon got rapped, if that is a word.
I don’t wake up most mornings thinking about the theological implications of rap. Well, I can honestly say that I’ve never woken up thinking of the theological implications of rap. So, credit for this vein of thought goes to an interesting interview on the 9marks website. Mark Dever, Pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., interviews Shai Linne and Voice about the role of rap in Christianity.
shai linne
Check it out, and see if it doesn’t change your thinking, maybe just a little bit…If you are into rap, Capitol Hill is an amazing and largely old-school church that sings hymns in corporate worship. Only hymns as I understand it. But they aren’t legalistic about it. They love hymns. And, they are good at singing them. The congregational singing on the Sunday morning I was there was better than most choirs I’ve been part of. Hearing the congregational as a choir proceeding on in perfect and heart-felt, four-part harmony when the piano and organ dropped out was in itself a spiritual experience within the broader Sunday morning service. That rap gets air time with Dever and CHBC is a cool thing for rap. If you aren’t into rap, you just might have to think about why…
http://media.9marks.org/
if nothing else, check out the discussion starting at 43 minutes and running through 46
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