1st Edition
Beyond Christian Hip Hop A Move Towards Christians and Hip Hop
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction Erika Gault and Travis Harris
1 A History of Christians and Hip Hop
Travis Harris
Section I: Identifying Hip Hop
2 Blendzville Global: A Conversation with Andrea "M$. Blendz" Castleberry
Travis Harris
3 If My Faith Had a YouTube: Digitizing Christianity and Hip Hop, an Interview with Beleaf Melanin
Erika Gault
Section II: Irreconcilable Christianity
4 Black White Supremacists: An Interrogation into ‘Christian Hip Hop’s Relationship with the White Man’s Religion
Daniel White Hodge and Travis Harris
5 From ‘Gospel’ to Global: A Talk with Anthony "DJ AA1K" Amos Travis Harris
6 "The Prince of Peace Ain't Down with Police Brutality": Gospel Gangstaz Confronting White Supremacy Post-LA Uprising of 1992 Matthew Linder
7 Skipp Coon: Race, Religion, and Black Radical History in Hip Hop
Phillip Luke Sinitiere
Section III: Boundaries
8 The Ruptures and Reconfigurations of Identity through Christian Hip Hop in Southern Africa Ibrahim Abraham and Tuomas Järvenpää
9 Latinx Innovators in the Emergence of Los Angeles Hip Hop: Expanding the Intersections of Christianity and Hip Hop
Jonathan Calvillo
10 ‘We Gon’ Be Alright’: Kendrick Lamar and the Theology of Affirmation
Darrius D. Hills
11 The Gospel According to ‘Ye; Kanye West, the Life of Pablo, and Authentic ChristianityTimothy Welbeck
12 ‘How You Gon’ See ‘Em If You Live in the Fog’: Theodicy in the lyrics of DMX
Trudy Mercadal
Contributors
Appendix
Index
Biography
Erika Gault is Assistant Professor in the Africana Studies Program in the College of Humanities at the University of Arizona, USA. On the topic of hip hop, religion, and/or digital ethnography she has delivered and published a number of papers regionally, nationally, and internationally. She is the recipient of a 2018-2019 Louisville Institute's First Book Grant for Minority Scholars for her current project regarding the digital-religious cultures of Black young adults. Erika centers her ethnographic work around social media and hip hop. She is an ordained elder at Elim Christian Fellowship and an award-winning slam poet.
Travis Harris is Assistant Professor in the department of African American Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, USA. Harris is also the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Hip Hop Studies, the leading journal on publishing Hip Hop scholarship. Harris is also involved in the Black freedom struggle as the Director of Political Education for the International Black Freedom Alliance. Harris is an ordained minister and is driven to ensure that those "from the bottom" are not forgotten, in academia or the freedom struggle.
