Hiphop meets religion and soars

Posted on April 9th, 2007

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National sources

SCHOLARS AND CULTURAL CRITICS

Michael Eric Dyson is Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is a member of the religious studies faculty. He is an expert on race, the black church and on crises now before the African-American community. His many books include Between God and Gangsta Rap: Bearing Witness to Black Culture (Oxford University Press, 1997) and Holler if You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur (Plexus Publishing, 2002). Contact 215-746-7790, mdyson@sas.upenn.edu.
Writer, lecturer and cultural critic Bakari Kitwana speaks widely about hiphop culture. Formerly editor of The Source magazine, which covers hiphop music, culture and politics, Kitwana is the author of The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African-American Culture (Basic Civitas Books, 2003) and Why White Kids Love Hip Hop: Wangstas, Wiggers, Wannabes and the New Realities of Race in America (Basic Civitas Books, 2005). He is currently writing a book with Jeff Johnson, Get Your Soul Right: Ministering to the Hiphop Generation. Kitwana directs the hiphop discussion tour RapSessions.org, which brings town-hall-style meetings on difficult dialogues facing the hiphop community to cities across the U.S. This year the theme is “Does hiphop hate women?” Next year: “Hiphop and the 2008 Presidential Election.” He is based in the Cleveland area. Contact 440-779-9893, Bakari@bakarikitwana.com.
Jeff Johnson is ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and is a political activist and media personality. His Washington, D.C., nonprofit, Truth Is Power, is a strategy, leadership training and curriculum-development company focused on hiphop and politics. Johnson produces and hosts Black Entertainment Television’s documentary miniseries The Jeff Johnson Chronicles; hosts BET’s weekly newsmagazine, The Chop Up; and offers commentary on BET’s Rap City. He’s been a music-industry consultant, deputy director for People for the American Way, national youth director for the NAACP and vice president of Hip-Hop Summit Action Network. He is co-writing (with Bakari Kitwana) a book, Get Your Soul Right: Ministering to the Hiphop Generation. Contact 202-248-8366, info@truthispower.net.
Marcyliena Morgan is an associate professor of communication at Stanford University and author of Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2006). She founded the Hiphop Archive at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University while on the faculty there. She now directs the Hiphop Archive@Stanford University and is working on a book about hiphop culture. She teaches classes on hiphop, the ethnography of communications, representation in the media, language and identity, race, class and gender. Contact 650-723-5448, mmorgan2@stanford.edu.
Anthony B. Pinn is Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and professor of religious studies at Rice University in Houston. He co-chairs the American Academy of Religion’s Black Theology Group and is executive director of the Society for the Study of Black Religion. His books include, as editor, Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music (New York University Press, 2003) and, as author, Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion (Augsburg Fortress, 2003). He teaches courses about African-American religions, including one on religion and hiphop. Contact 713-348-2710, Pinn@rice.edu.
Martha Simmons is publisher of the nondenominational preaching and ministry journal The African American Pulpit. She is an associate minister at Rush Memorial United Church of Christ in Atlanta. The magazine’s winter 2006-07 issue is devoted to hiphop. Simmons has a wealth of contacts and ideas on the subject. Contact 800-509-8227, info@theafricanamericanpulpit.com.
Michael G. Datcher, visiting assistant professor of English at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, co-edited Tough Love: The Life and Death of Tupac Shakur (BlackWords Inc., 1996). He can discuss criticism of rap music and of the hiphop ethos. Contact 310-338-3715, mdatcher@lmu.edu.
Dancer Jessica Ralph, a member of the National Baptist Convention USA, directs workshops using hiphop, liturgical dance and other art forms in a religious context. She is a member of the World Council of Churches’ transformation team, a group with varied backgrounds and talents who lead classes and workshops. Contact jessynycole@aol.com.
Ted Swedenburg is a cultural anthropologist at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. His interests in Middle East culture, world music and transnational identities include Islamic African-American rap. He’s written about Islamic hiphop. Contact 479-575-6624, tsweden@uark.edu.

MUSICIANS AND RELIGIOUS LEADERS

Tommy Kyllonen, aka Urban D, was youth pastor at Crossover Community Church in Tampa, Fla., when the dwindling adult membership of about 50 was overwhelmed by hundreds of youth responding to Kyllonen’s hiphop ministry. In 2002, the church went totally hiphop, installing Kyllonen as pastor. Now he is patron to a national movement of hiphop churches. He hosts the Fla.vor Fest hiphop series on INSP television network, and Crossover sponsors the annual Fla.vor Fest conference to showcase and train youth evangelists in hiphop ministry. Kyllonen’s book, Unorthodox: Church.Hip-Hop.Culture (Zondervan, April 2007) will be released with a double disc CD and documentary DVD of the Crossover story. Contact 813-935-8887 or 813-880-0538, urband@crossoverchurch.org.
Otis Moss III is pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Moss is known for his ability to speak to young people, extensive theological education and preaching. A poet, he wrote Redemption in a Red Light District: Messages of Hope, Healing and Empowerment (FOUR-G Publishers, 2000). Contact 773-962-5650.
Benjamin Chavis Muhammad and Russell Simmons lead the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, a nonprofit founded in 2001 to use hiphop as a catalyst for improving society and addressing poverty and injustice. Contact through Jody L. Miller at 212-431-5227 (office) or 917-770-3970 (cell), jody@jlmpr.com, or through Pamela Lipshitz at 212-431-5227 (office) or 917-859-6852 (cell), lip@jlmpr.com; both are with JLM PR in New York.
Cameron Strang is president of Relevant Media Group, an Orlando magazine publisher and marketer of music and other media aimed at savvy young Christians. Contact 407-660-1411, cameron@relevantmediagroup.com.
Larry Acosta is president of the Hispanic Ministry Center and the evangelical Urban Youth Workers Institute in Buena Park, Calif. He can discuss the organization’s use of Christian rap and the response of youngsters to it. Contact 800-734-8994, info@uywi.org.
Aaron Bisman is president of the 5-year-old, not-for-profit record and event production company JDub Records in New York City. The company works with Jewish hiphop musicians whose music is focused on issues of faith and Jewish culture. Like its religion, Jewish hiphop does not evangelize, making the genre quite different from its Christian counterpart, he says. The scene is small, with only five or six commercially viable recording artists who employ rap as just one of numerous elements. Typical is Balkan Beat Box, a collective whose work fuses folk music of the Middle East and Balkans with hiphop and electronica, and uses lyrics in English, Hebrew and Arabic. The Israeli hiphop industry is larger, though albums are less about religion than Israeli cultural, political and spiritual issues. Bisman can help reporters contact musicians for interviews. Contact 212-998-4112, aaron@jdubrecords.org.
David Hawa manages the Muslim trio Native Deen and other Muslim musicians through his entertainment marketing company Daze Studios in Sterling, Va. He can discuss the Muslim music scene and connect reporters with musicians, including Native Deen. Contact Hawa, 703-229-8300, dhawa@dazestudios.com.
The Rev. Timothy Holder, aka Poppa T, is rector of Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania in New York’s South Bronx. His background is in politics, organizational development and evangelizing in diverse communities. He founded the Trinity Hip Hop Mass, now called HipHopEMass, at the church and is nationally known Contact 718-542-1309, trinity.bronx@verizon.net.

Web resources

The Hiphop Portal is a door into the hiphop world.
HipHopEMass is maintained by Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania in New York’s South Bronx.

CHRISTIAN

Many churches host hiphop services or hiphop ministries. The nondenominational Crossover Community Church in Tampa, Fla., is known as the first hiphop church. Greater Hood Memorial AME Zion in New York contains the Harlem Hiphop Church of rap pioneer Kurtis Blow.
Feed magazine in Ajax, Ontario, covers Christian hiphop.
Hype and Glory is a new show that features hiphop and rap-gospel videos on the Gospel Music Channel.
The Gospel Hip Hop Association, founded in 2005 and based in Long Beach, Calif., uses a board of elders to screen and certify music for biblical consistency, accuracy, morals and holiness.

CHRISTIAN HIPHOP RADIO STATIONS

KHDZ radio in Los Angeles plays holy hiphop.
Philadelphia’s Holy Culture Radio and digital download store uses the streaming Internet format. Access it through its MySpace site.
Altared Lives is a Lakeland, Fla., urban gospel radio station.
Holy WHLE 106.3 FM radio in Atlanta was the first station to air the holy hiphop format, beginning in 1999. It also produces a two-hour weekly syndicated program called Holy Hiphop, hosted by Donna Verne and minister eDDie Velez, “Da Preachin’ Puerto Rican.” The site’s list of industry news releases gives a look at and links to the industry.

RAP FESTIVALS

Holy Hiphop Week 2007 was held in Atlanta, including the Fellowship of Holy Hiphop’s seventh annual Artist Showcase and Music Awards. The events were kicked off with a welcome from the mayor and were covered by such Christian media as Trinity Broadcasting Network and Christian Television Network. Read a recap at the Holy Hiphop site.
RapFest is held annually in August in New York City.
Fla.vor Fest, a concert-and-conference event, is held annually in November at Crossover Community Church in Tampa, Fla. Participating acts are subjected to rigorous screening for both artistic ability and religious content, says director and pastor Tommy Kyllonen.

AWARDS

In 2007, the Grammies included rap along with Christian rock among its Christian and gospel music categories. Thegospelzone.com points out that hiphop accounts for 25 percent of gospel music sales.
The GMA Dove Awards are Christian music’s Grammies.
The Stellar Awards include rap and hiphop categories.
Texas Holy Hiphop Achievement Awards have been held in Houston in June since 2002.

MUSLIM

Muslim rap is a small but growing movement, thanks to Native Deen, a pioneering group of three young African-American men who were reared in Islam and brought together through a youth music outreach program of Muslim Youth of North America (affiliated with the Islamic Society of North America). Native Deen lyrics gently urge youth to choose God, respect women, love peace and prayer, and reject violence, cigarettes, alcohol and materialism. The group is wildly popular among Muslim youth the world over, drawing concert audiences of thousands. One member, Joshua Salaam, was an imam at an Air Force base while enlisted in military service. The program MYNA Raps is being revived from dormancy in hopes of encouraging and promoting young Muslim musicians.

JEWISH

Jewish rap is a very small scene. Wikipedia lists Jewish and Israeli hiphop and rap groups. Typically, Jewish artists deal more with cultural Jewishness than with religion. The best-known exception is the commercially successful recording artist Matisyahu, whose reggae work includes the occasional rap. Matisyahu belongs to the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic community. JDub Records is a New York City record and promotion company built around contemporary Jewish music, both cultural and religious. See the company’s MySpace site for a calendar of upcoming performances around the country.

Background

Rap – the musical expression of hiphop culture – is informed by the same deep questions as religion, says Anthony Pinn, a Rice University expert on black religion. These are questions like: What does it mean for us to be? To be happy? Who put us here? Why are we here? Early rappers critiqued mainstream Christianity, and some made references to the Nation of Islam (Public Enemy), Sunni Islam (Mos Def) and The Five Percent Nation (Eric B. and Rakim). Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was the first religious leader to embrace rap as a contemporary expression of classic questions of faith, Pinn says. Later, Christian evangelists adopted street culture and music as a means of enlivening Christianity and making it responsive and relevant to youth. Protestant Christianity is the dominant voice in both religious rap today.

SURVEYS

The Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago surveyed 1,590 African-Americans, whites and Latinos aged 15 to 25 in several Midwest cities on subjects including rap music, premarital sex, politics and the “color-blind” society. Read a news release summarizing results released Feb. 1, 2007, including these: 58 percent of black youth listen to rap music daily, compared with 45 percent of Latinos and 23 percent of whites; and black youngsters express more concern about the content of rap CDs and videos than whites or Latinos, with 72 of blacks agreeing that rap videos have too many sexual references.

ARTICLES

According to The Boston Globe’s Dec. 3, 2006, article “The music industry takes sales as gospel,” Christian and gospel music is the one growing music category; sales last year were up 11.6 percent. That popularity is recognized at conferences and music award ceremonies, where Christian rap or hiphop is increasingly included as a category.
Read “Bringing Hip Hop to the Church in the Bronx,” a Feb. 16, 2006, article at Associated Content.
Read “Holy Hip Hop genre brings gospel to urban America,” a February 2005 article in the Christian Examiner online.
Read “Shouting hip-hop’s praises,” a Nov. 28, 2005, USA Today article posted by Crossover Community Church in Tampa about its minister, Tommy Kyllonen.
A breakthrough moment of synergy between mainstream and Christian rap was Kanye West’s 2004 hit Jesus Walks, in which the Billboard-topping rapper showcased his faith. Read the Sept. 24, 2004, Washington Post article “Rap Gets Religion, But Is It Gospel?“.
Charisma magazine’s August 2002 article “Get Ready for the Hip-Hop Revolution” takes hiphop from its party music origins in the 1970s Bronx to the current growth of hiphop churches. Charisma says hiphop churches are likely to be multicultural, to include a DJ and turntables in worship services, and perhaps to include break-dancing in praise and worship.
Read “Some of That Hard-Time Religion,” a Beliefnet review of Christian hiphop album Universal Concussion by J.E. Cooper, aka B.B. Jay.
Read Beliefnet’s “Top 10 Muslim Hiphop Lyrics” and note the accompanying criticism (on the right side of the page) from Muslim readers.
Read “Michael Eric Dyson: A Scholar and Hip-Hop Preacher” from the spring 2000 Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, online at The Scholarly Journal Archive.
Violent and misogynistic rap music reflects corporate values, not authentic hiphop culture, says writer and commentator Bakari Kitwana. See a list of (secular) hiphop values, “What we want,” at the site of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, a nonprofit that brings artists and others together to work for societal change.

Regional sources

IN THE NORTHEAST

Ernest Allen Jr. is a professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. His essay “Making the Strong Survive: The Contours and Contradictions of Message Rap” appears in Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture (Temple University Press, 1996). Contact 413-545-2751, eallen@afroam.umass.edu.
Josef Sorett studies religious and spiritual expressions in hiphop music and culture. He has a master of divinity degree and is a graduate student in African-American studies at Harvard University, where his dissertation is on race, religion and the arts in 20th-century America. He has worked extensively with young people in nonprofits and religious communities. Contact sorett@hiphoparchive.org.

IN THE EAST

Mark Lewis Taylor is Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Theology and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary. He wrote Religion, Politics and the Christian Right: Post-9/11 Powers and American Empire (Fortress Press, 2005) and The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America (Fortress Press, 2001). He is a commentator on American culture and politics. He has written articles on hiphop and religion. His expertise also includes race, U.S. prisons, the death penalty and contemporary anti-war movements. Contact 609-497-7918, mark.taylor@ptsem.edu.
Darren A. Ferguson is founder and pastor of Luke 4:18 Ministries, an umbrella organization of hiphop ministers and services in New York, including the Soldiers of Praise hiphop choir and Friday Night FLAYVA (Freedom, Love and Abundant Youth Victory Alliance) worship. He is also youth director for Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. Ferguson calls his preaching style “Hiphop Homiletics” and says hiphop is a new paradigm for youth ministries. He says streetwise kids respond when they see that God loves people enough to send somebody who speaks their language. Read a Beliefnet article titled “Hiphop Minister: Beware of Cheapening the Gospel.” Contact 917-330-1329, RevFerg@Luke418.org.
Tonya Wilder-Butts is manager of the American Bible Society’s Elementz of Life, a ministry and publication aimed at young people involved with gangs and street life. The New York society has released a Christian hiphop CD, Conkrete Angels. Contact 212-408-1486.
The Rev. Jason A. Barr Jr. is senior pastor at Macedonia Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, Pa. He co-authored The Gospel Remix: Reaching the Hip Hop Generation (Judson Press, 2007). Barr is an adjunct professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and Geneva College in Pennsylvania. Contact 412-281-8437.
The Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant is founder and pastor of the large Empowerment Temple, an AME church in Baltimore, and was previously director of the NAACP’s youth and college division. He co-authored The Gospel Remix: Reaching the Hip Hop Generation (Judson Press, 2007). Contact 443-738-0463.
The Rev. William H. Curtis is senior pastor of Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, Pa. He co-authored The Gospel Remix: Reaching the Hip Hop Generation (Judson Press, 2007). Curtis is president of the influential Hampton University Ministers’ Conference in 2007 and contributed to Outstanding Black Sermons, Volume 4 (Judson Press, 2001). Contact him through his assistant, the Rev. Montele A. Crawford, 412-441-1800, Mcrawford@mt-ararat.org.
Rutgers University associate law professor Imani Perry wrote Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop (Duke University Press, 2004). She studies race, legal history and culture. Contact 856-225-6375, iperry@camlaw.rutgers.edu.
Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr. is an associate professor of music at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He leads a band, Dr. Guy’s MusiQologY, and has expertise in African-American and American music, jazz, cultural studies, popular music, film studies and historiography. He wrote Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop (University of California Press, 2003). Contact 215-898-7544, gramsey@sas.upenn.edu.

IN THE SOUTHEAST

Mark Anthony Neal is an associate professor of black popular culture and African-American studies at Duke University. His books include Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (Routledge, 2002) and What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (Routledge, 1998). He regards Christian hiphop as gospel music. Contact 919-684-3987, man9@duke.edu.
Charles E. Jones chairs the African-American studies at Georgia State University. He recently took part in the second annual Hiphop Summit Behind Prison Walls at the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ USP Coleman II high-security prison near Ocala, Fla., where participants discussed the role of hiphop in crime and violence in black communities. Contact 404-651-2157, cjones@gsu.edu.
Layli Phillips is associate professor of women’s studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, where she is also a faculty affiliate in the African-American studies department.Her teaching and research are on women and hiphop, womanism, black feminism and black queer studies.Contact 404-651-2524, layli@gsu.edu.
Dawn-Elissa Fischer is an anthropology graduate student at the University of Florida, where she has taught courses on hiphop culture in the African-American studies department. She is the education outreach coordinator for Stanford University’s Hiphop Archive and is a founder of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention. She works with youth in a number of capacities, including as executive director of Edutainment 4 Life, a collective of consultants working on programs for underserved youth, and on the advisory board of HOTGIRLS Inc. (Helping Our Teen Girls in Real Life Situations), a nonprofit using hiphop to educate girls about sexual health. She has commented on hiphop culture on Black Entertainment Television and Pacifica Radio. Contact 352-392-5724, deesie@ufl.edu.
Hampton, Va., hiphop artist Sean Slaughter writes a column, Freestylin‘, for GospelFlava.com, the gospel music industry newsmagazine. He can discuss the relationship between gospel and hiphop. Contact 877-528-2078, kim@slaughtermusic.com.
Derrick P. Alridge is an associate professor in the college of education at the University of Georgia. He wrote “From Civil Rights to Hiphop: Toward a Nexus of Ideas,” an article in the 2005 Journal of African American History (Vol. 90). Contact 706-542-8113, dalridge@uga.edu.
Melva Wilson Costen is an authority on music and worship in the black church. She wrote the widely consulted African American Christian Worship (Abingdon Press, 1993) and In Spirit and in Truth: The Music of African American Worship (Westminster, 2004). She recently retired from the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, where she was Helmar Emil Nielsen Professor of Music and Worship. Contact 404-696-9836, mwcosten@mindspring.com.

IN THE SOUTH

Brad Mathias is vice president of operations/pastor at Infinity Music Distribution in Nashville. He can discuss the hiphop genre of Christian music. Contact 800-251-3052 ext. 2242, brad@infinitymusicdistribution.com.
James Scandrick directs the Institute on Black Church Sacred Music and Worship at Nashville’s American Baptist College. Hiphop has a definite place in worship services, he says, but he worries that traditional black church music is endangered. Contact 615-256-1463.
CEO, pastor and rap recording artist Del Lawrence, aka Mr. Del, was a member of a secular – and explicit – rap group, Three 6 Mafia, before he became a Christian six years ago. Since then, he says, he has been rapping for God. Lawrence leads City of Refuge Church in Memphis, Tenn.; records with EMI Gospel; and owns Holy South and Nu Soul Records. Contact 901-309-3090, bookmrdel@gmail.com.
Felicia Miyakawa is assistant professor of musicology at the McLean School of Music at Middle Tennessee State University. She can discuss hiphop music and culture, African-American music and black nationalism. She wrote Five Percenter Rap: God Hop’s Music, Message and Black Muslim Mission (Indiana University Press, 2005) and is faculty adviser for the school’s Urban Music Society. Contact 615-898-2469, miyakawa@mtsu.edu or fmiyakaw@yahoo.com.
Leo Davis Jr. is minister of music at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis, Tenn., which is renowned for its gospel music, broadcast on three local radio stations. Davis has a scholarly background in black church worship and can discuss contemporary influences and trends in church music. Contact 901-729-6222 ext. 414, davis.leo@mbccmemphis.org, or contact his assistant, Sharon Smith, ext. 417, smith.sharon@mbccmemphis.org.

IN THE MIDWEST

Richard Brent Turner is an associate professor in the African-American world studies program at the University of Iowa. Turner wrote Islam in the African-American Experience (Indiana University Press, 2003) and teaches a course called “20^th-Century African-American Religion: Civil Rights to Hiphop.” Contact 319-335-2175, richard-turner@uiowa.edu.
Efrem Smith is senior pastor at Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis. Smith co-authored The Hip-Hop Church: Connecting With the Movement Shaping Our Culture (IVP Books, 2006). He also wrote Raising Up Young Heroes: Developing a Revolutionary Youth Ministry (InterVarsity Press, 2004). Contact 612-520-9160.
Phil Jackson is lead pastor of The House, a youth and young-adult hiphop church plant in Chicago. The House is a church plant of the Evangelical Covenant Church, sponsored by Lawndale Community Church. Jackson founded Bringin’ Da Funk Communications, a youth ministry. He co-authored The Hip-Hop Church: Connecting With the Movement Shaping Our Culture (IVP Books, 2006). Contact 773-762-6389.
James W. Perkinson is associate professor of ethics and systematic theology at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit. He is studying how socioeconomic position, race and gender affect the formation of people’s values and identity early in life. Contact 313-831-5200, jperkinson@etseminary.edu.
Cathy J. Cohen is professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where she formerly directed the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture. She wrote The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics (University of Chicago Press, 1999). She directs the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago, which surveyed attitudes of 1,590 African-Americans, white and Latinos aged 15 to 25 in several Midwest cities on various topics, including rap music. Contact 773-834-1706.

IN THE SOUTHWEST

Juan Floyd-Thomas is an associate professor of history at Texas Christian University. He writes about African-American religion, and among his research interests is the influence of Islam on African-American popular culture. Contact 817-257-6302, J.Floyd-Thomas@tcu.edu.
Alan Lamar Patterson, aka AL P, got a law degree from Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University and then became a minister. He is a staff member of Mount Corinth Church in Houston, where he directs the monthly Friday Night Live, the Happy Hour of Power. Hiphop is the teacher of his generation, Patterson says. Contact 832-594-0599.
Teresa L. Reed is associate professor of music at the University of Tulsa, where she directs the African American Studies Program. She wrote The Holy Profane: Religion in Black Popular Music (University Press of Kentucky, 2004). Contact 918-631-3164, teresa-shelton@utulsa.edu.
Connon Neal is manager and booking agent for brothers Lil Mike (Jesus Silva II) and Funny Bone (Jesus Silva IV). They are Oklahoma City Christian hiphop artists and members of the Pawnee (Oklahoma) tribe. They have opened for Christian acts and performed at the Gathering of Nations Powwow. Read about them in an undated Oklahoman article, “Faith takes brothers from gangsta to gospel,” posted at Red Lake Net News. Contact 405-923-8640, congoent@sbcglobal.net.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST

W.P. Middlebrooks is a lay minister and rap evangelist at People’s Place Church in Pasadena, Calif., affiliated with the Church of God in Christ. He has developed Christian hiphop events and clubs through his Youth United for the World ministry. Contact 626-403-1090, PeoplesPlaceIntl@aol.com.
Robin Sylvan is a member of the art and religion adjunct faculty at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif., and author of the essay “Rap Music, Hip-Hop Culture and ‘The Future Religion of the World’ ” in God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2000) Contact 510-848-0528 (department), robinsyl@earthlink.net.
Kimasi Browne is director of the ethnomusicology program at Azusa Pacific University near Los Angeles, where he is an assistant professor of music. Contemporary religious music trends and hiphop are among his areas of expertise. Contact 626-815-6000 ext. 3586, kbrowne@apu.edu.
Bobby Schuller, head of Energizing Ministries for the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., and grandson of founder Robert Schuller, holds regular hiphop church services at the Los Angeles FaithDome, attracting thousands. Contact 714-971-4000.
The Rev. Charles “Chuck” Stephen Currie Jr. is a well-known Christian blogger on youth culture and is interim minister of Parkrose Community United Church of Christ in Portland, Ore. He can discuss the pros and cons of embracing hiphop for smaller, suburban churches. Contact 503-253-5457, chuck.currie@gmail.com.
The Rev. Ralph C. Watkins is assistant dean of the African-American Church Studies Program at the multidenominational Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. Watkins co-authored The Gospel Remix: Reaching the Hip Hop Generation (Judson Press, 2007). Watkins, a pastor and musician, works to resolve gaps between the hiphop generation and its elders. Contact 626-584-5599, rwatkins@fuller.edu.