Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music

by Anthony B. Pinn

Overview

Rap music is often seen as a Black secular response to pressing issues of our time. Yet, like spirituals, the blues, and gospel music, rap has deep connections to African American religious traditions.
Noise and Spirit explores the diverse religious dimensions of rap stemming from Islam (including the Nation of Islam and Five Percent Nation), Rastafarianism, and Humanism, as well as Christianity. The volume examines rap’s dialogue with religious traditions, from the ways in which Islamic rap music is used as a method of religious and political instruction to the uses of both the blues and Black women’s rap for considering the distinction between God and the Devil.
The first section explores rap’s association with more easily recognizable religious traditions and communities such as Christianity and Islam. The next presents discussions of rap and important spiritual considerations, including on the topic of death. The final unit wrestles with ways to theologize about the relationship between the sacred and the profane in rap.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814766996
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	222
Sales rank:	290,814
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Anthony B. Pinn is Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University, where he also serves as the executive director of the Society for the Study of Black Religion. His books include Varieties of African-American Religious Experience, Why Lord?: Suffering and Evil in Black Theology, and By These Hands: A Documentary History of African-American Humanism (NYU Press, 2001).

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments
Introduction: Making a World with a Beat: Musical Expression’s Relationship to Religious Identity and Experience
Rap and Religious Traditions
African American Christian Rap: Facing “Truth” and Resisting It: Garth Kasimu Baker-Fletcher
A Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African American
Islam and Contemporary Hip-Hop: Juan M. Floyd-Thomas
Rap, Reggae, and Religion: Sounds of Cultural Dissonance: Noel Leo Erskine
“Handlin’ My Business”: Exploring Rap’s Humanist Sensibilities: Anthony B. Pinn
Rap and Issues of “Spirit” and “Spirituality”
Bringing Noise, Conjuring Spirit: Rap as Spiritual Practice: Mark Lewis Taylor
Rap as Wrap and Rapture: North American Popular Culture and the Denial of Death: James W. Perkinson
The Spirit Is Willing and So Is the Flesh: The Queen
in Hip-Hop Culture: Leola A. Johnson
Rap and the Art of “Theologizing”
The Rub: Markets, Morals, and the “Theologizing” of Music: William C. Banfield
Rap, Religion, and New Realities: The Emergence of a Religious Discourse in Rap Music: Ralph C. Watkins
Selected Bibliography
About the Contributors
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Both a scholarly book and a pleasurable read.”
-QBR

,

“In moving beyond the common misconception that rap is simply a secular expression, this volume offers a refreshing discussion about the tensions that exist between the sacred and profane. It foregrounds the spiritual and religious dimensions of rap music and the genre's interpolation and critique of Buddhist, Islamic, Christian, Rastafarian, and Humanist thought in an unprecedented way.”
-Cheryl L. Keyes,author of Rap Music and Street Consciousness

“Cutting through the din of confusion and controversy surrounding hip-hop, Noise and Spirit illuminates the spiritual struggles a the root of the music and the culture. The essays collected here brim with the energy of discovery and engagement, and leave no doubt that Tupac, KRS-One, and Queen Latifah are carrying on the tradition of Al Green, Mahalia Jackson, and the 'black unknown bards' who forged a redemptive vision in the fires of a furnace that continues to burn.”
-Craig Werner,author of Higher Ground: Aretha, Stevie, Curtis and America's Quest for Redemption

“Noise and Spirit is a thought provoking collection of empirical works that ultimately offer even the most reluctant of scholars a great vantage point from which to build on a continuing examination into, and further discussion of, the fragile and often contentious alliance between rap and religion. This is clearly a definitive work worth reading.”
-The Sociology of Religion

Editorial Reviews

"In moving beyond the common misconception that rap is simply a secular expression, this volume offers a refreshing discussion about the tensions that exist between the sacred and profane. It foregrounds the spiritual and religious dimensions of rap music and the genre's interpolation and critique of Buddhist, Islamic, Christian, Rastafarian, and Humanist thought in an unprecedented way."

Cheryl L. Keyes

"Cutting through the din of confusion and controversy surrounding hip-hop, Noise and Spirit illuminates the spiritual struggles a the root of the music and the culture. The essays collected here brim with the energy of discovery and engagement, and leave no doubt that Tupac, KRS-One, and Queen Latifah are carrying on the tradition of Al Green, Mahalia Jackson, and the 'black unknown bards' who forged a redemptive vision in the fires of a furnace that continues to burn."

Craig Werner

"Noise and Spirit is a thought provoking collection of empirical works that ultimately offer even the most reluctant of scholars a great vantage point from which to build on a continuing examination into, and further discussion of, the fragile and often contentious alliance between rap and religion. This is clearly a definitive work worth reading."

The Sociology of Religion

Both a scholarly book and a pleasurable read.”
• QBR

“In moving beyond the common misconception that rap is simply a secular expression, this volume offers a refreshing discussion about the tensions that exist between the sacred and profane. It foregrounds the spiritual and religious dimensions of rap music and the genre's interpolation and critique of Buddhist, Islamic, Christian, Rastafarian, and Humanist thought in an unprecedented way.”
-Cheryl L. Keyes,author of Rap Music and Street Consciousness

“ Noise and Spirit is a thought provoking collection of empirical works that ultimately offer even the most reluctant of scholars a great vantage point from which to build on a continuing examination into, and further discussion of, the fragile and often contentious alliance between rap and religion. This is clearly a definitive work worth reading.”
• The Sociology of Religion

From the Publisher

"Both a scholarly book and a pleasurable read."

QBR