I Pastor Hip Hop

Book excerpt: My dichotomy between Hip-Hop and the Church has appeared a conflict to many, but to me, it never has been. At the same time that I was falling in love with Hip-Hop, I was immersed and in love with the church. My introduction into Christianity is from the Black Pentecostal Tradition (Church of God in Christ). My life was quite busy as a young person; I played drums, sang lead in the junior choir, and attended Sunday school and Young People Willing Workers (YPWW). I had a strong love for both cultures, but I was told by the church that one could not mesh or intertwine Hip-Hop and the church, and so the lifelong conflict begins! Like many of our religious forefathers on western soil, we continue to shut out different forms of expression due to the fear of becoming "too worldly". Have we ever stopped to think that the issue is even deeper? Some of us want to control the move of God because it doesn't fit into our structure or programmed liturgy! However, during the early inception of Hip-Hop culture, people thought it was absurd and sacrilegious if Hip-Hop shared the stage and the microphone with the Church. Due to the church's rejection of Hip-Hop, the younger people from my generation started to develop a contempt towards people within the Christian Faith community. This contempt brought an even stronger divide, and it seemed as though this separation continued to perpetuate. Part of it has to do with the generational divide and the methodology.