Global Hip-Hop

I'm reading a couple books about hip-hop as I work on Broken Hallelujah including Michael Eric Dyson's Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip-Hop and Raising Kanye by Donda West, the late mother of rapper Kanye West.  Dyson makes the argument for hip-hop as a really important American art form worthy of serious intellectual attention and I agree.  One facinating thing I had sort of noticed but realize is much more profound is the global spread.  Today's NYT has a great article about hip-hop in China.  Jimmy Wang writes:

"Over the last decade many students and working-class Chinese have been writing rap as a form of self-expression. Rougher and more rebellious than the well-scrubbed pop that floods the airwaves here, this kind of hip-hop is not sanctioned by broadcast media producers or state censors but has managed to attract a grass-roots fan base.

“Hip-hop is free, like rock ’n’ roll — we can talk about our lives, what we’re thinking about, what we feel,” said Wang Liang, 25, a popular hip-hop D.J. in China who is known as Wordy. “The Chinese education system doesn’t encourage you to express your own character. They feed you stale rules developed from books passed down over thousands of years. There’s not much opportunity for personal expression or thought; difference is discouraged.”  [read the rest here]

Hip-hop is a way to tell the truth, a theme I want to put into relationship with faithfulness.   If Christ is the word, if he is the truth that sets us free, then seeking to find ways like this to actually speak out of the frustration and difficulty of life, as well as the fun and joy, seems worth looking at for the sake of seeing what human life is now.  If we really believe that "nothing came into being without him" then their is a creative grace already present without confession of faith, a pressing to be human one can claim as God-given. 

anon and peace,
Chris

Comments

[Jeff R.]

Interestingly original Hip-Hop is very popular among young people on Native American reservations. I believe it was last fall that there was a NA Hip Hop festival held in the Twin Cities. It spans a wide range of emotions, but difficulty of life and injustice are often main themes.