Brothas and sistas. Some of you have probably already read it/heard about it/seent it, and some of you just might get it here. I do not even pretend to be the first to do anything. You know me, I'm almost always late and I tell you, it's never totally my fault.
(Stop rolling your eyes.)
Anyway, I picked up my Newsweek today and I'm reading the Periscope portion and I get to Beliefwatch, which had the spunk about it to subtitle things with "Word." The caption read, "Raising the roof," just as I begin to worry whoa Lord, what have they unearthed on us now ("us" bein' the way Sue Esther, my beloved granny - the subject of many a hilarious story from my childhood days - referred to black folks whenever something went down that wasn't in the most favorable light)?
So yeah, "Popular Christian music styles have always paralleled the sound of secular hits, from grunge to techno. Now hip-hop is finding its way into the liturgies of traditional churches."
No, we're not talking about folk like MC Hammer and Ma$e becomin' ghetto pastors. We're talkin' about the way white folks have their Jars of Clay and that's about the end of my knowledge of white folk christian music -- oh, that Jaci Vasquez girl, folks like that. Okay, so this is an article whose subject isn't really new to me, because in the churches I've attended there's been a long-standing, long-running convivial understanding that on any given Sunday mo'nin' the church can very well be half-full with folk that ended their Saturday fun just before the sun rose up on Sunday. I mean, I've chuckled at quite a few red-eyed folk who snapped with a start when the pastor bellowed out an Amen here and there.
Anyway, Rev. Timothy (Poppa T) Holder is credited in this sidebar article for getting other churches in the act by creating hip-hip services for churches across the country. Thankfully, Newsweek takes its reporting seriously enough to kindly point out that Poppa T is a white, middle-aged reverend ... which, uh, wasn't surprising to me for several reasons, the least of which being his interpretation of the 23rd Psalms, which inspired this post and Iwill trip out on in just a few.
(But yeah, I'm basically thinking that the same way it pretty much took Eminem to bring hip-hop to the attention of the greater white folk spectrum, Poppa T is hip-hop's second Trojan horse of sorts ... but this time it's going beyond the mosh pit and into the pulpit.)
That's cool. I mean, I'm having a very hard time imagining how the hip-hop service went down in "the more buttoned-up St. Paul's Chapel of Trinity Church," but I'm open to things. I've sat stone-faced through a Methodist service; I've over-enunciated all vowel sounds in hymns with my Southern Baptist brethren; I've totally wondered where in the world I was and what was going to happen to me during a Pentecostal service. It makes me chuckle the time I remember being in church feelin' kinda sleepy because we'd decided to try out the early 8 a.m. service -- not that I'd been out the night before ... although I have done that, too, and I do not recommend it.
Sidebar on why I don't recommend it ... because when you go out and party or dance or do whatever things that aren't wholly holy, you can best believe that at some point during that service there's gonna be a song, a moment in prayer, a phrase in that sermon where the pastor is gonna find some kinda way to wheedle you, callin' you out by your deeds. It's the point where you seriously feel like there might be some errant, mischievous angel hovering right above your head pointing his little arrow straight down at you talkin' 'bout, "Here go one. Here go one, right here! If you gave this one a breathalyzer test, she'd fail on the inhale!"
I mean I felt like I was glowing in the manner that said this one needs baptism immediately. And I have this very bad habit of looking up, looking very much like I was caught with the hand all up in the cookie jar, head darting around wondering who else knows and making eye contact with the preacher. Don't make eye contact with the preacher, because he will only lean forward on the lectern, raise his arm in the air, sigh and say something that will cause you just to drop your head on back down. Guilty. Needs savin'. Immediately say to yourself, "Jesus. You know my heart."
This, "Jesus, you know my heart," is one example of that long-standing, long-running convivial understanding that yes, you've prayed the prayer and accepted Jesus Christ as your savior, but you are also only human, born to make mistakes. You are in the human league, you see.
Anyway, we were at the early service. I wish all of y'all will at some point venture into a sanctified black church, just for the experience of it. It's not all fun and games to be sure; I love going to church, but good churches are hard to find. You have to find one that suits you, otherwise you're just going to find more things to do on Saturday night. So we're at the early service and it was a young folk day - where they were prominently featured in the service singing, conducting readings, etc. - and the pastor sensed the church was too quiet, so he asked the big choir to lead a song to get everyone up on their feet for the Lord.
Now it's me, my sister Kim and our friend Sonya. Sonya and I are leanin' in the pews like two reformed pimps, fidna be knocked out slobberin' something serious. Kim is the sadiddy one in church. All prim and proper with a scarf draped over her knees to not reveal too much leg - 'cause God help the man who can't focus on the word for all that leg being shown. Yield not to temptation, people.
I'm like a kid in church. Always. If something tickles me I am going to laugh about it. I'm going to try really hard not to laugh out loud, but that is only going to cause me to snort which will make me laugh harder until eventually I'm wheezing ooh wee's and sighing and probably sweatin' because church clothes almost always equal pantyhose and I break out at the thought of inch-worming my way into some bloody pantyhose.
So there was this one lady. We never saw her, but we always heard her. Most of you know enough to know that in a great many of the black churches we love us some call and response. We conduct prayers in this manner, we sing in this manner and the preacher ain't preachin' lest somebody is out there offerin' ev'ry a-man, hallelujah!, alright!, preach it!, you betta preach, preacher!, glow-ree! there is to holler out. So this lady, her "callin' card," if you will, was the "thank ya!" But it came out like, well, she was never near us, so it always sounded like it was coming from afar ... like the other side of the river Jordan. And it sounded like she was a mynah bird or something. Highly nasal and shrieking.
She has already gotten started on this morning and Sonya and I have picked up on it and are chuckling when the preacher admonishes the congregation by saying we ain't happy enough, we don't really, he doesn't really think we understand, we don't understand how sweet it is to be a child of God. So he hauls off and stomps his foot and spins around and screams, "I don't think you hear me. I want you to get up! Get up and get crunk for Jesus!"
Sonya and I snap up. "Did he just say get crunk?" Sonya says to me peering over the tops of her glasses like an old lady.
"Yes," says Ms.Sadiddy. "And y'all jokahs need to get up and stop actin' like y'all too tired to be here. Preacher said get up."
(If there's one place where Kim and I are really night and day it's in the church. She raises her right arm and waves it during prayer, she a-mans out loud, she stands up to sing, she walks up there to put her tithes in the basket, she knows the books of the Bible, her Bible does not have those terrifically convenient tabs on it that tells you there's John and then there's 1 John, 2 John and 3 John.)
But Sonya and I are stunned. Neither of us has ever been to one of these new kinda non-denominational churches. We're used to the traditional service where secular allusions are made with great disdain, not great enthusiasm. Churches where church fans are mandatory and not just courtesies, churches where someone has to lead a song a-capella for a few bars while the organ player leaves out one door to cross behind the baptismal pool over to the piano side. Only old people call out and stand up and testify because young people haven't lived enough -- you know these are the people that believe that until you're married and have children and have woiked should not speak until they have been spoken to. So the notion of the pastor himself saying the words "get crunk" were inspiring.
Not that we stood up, because we were immediately surveying the area for examples of folks who got crunk and folks who were gettin' crunk for Jesus. Huge difference. Gettin' crunk for Jesus does not involve dance steps that look suspiciously like they came out of a 69 Boys video.
Alright, back to the original reason for this post. It is this:
The Lord is all that. I need for nothing. He allows me to chill. He keeps me from being heated and allows me to breathe easy. He guides my life so that I can represent and give shout outs in His name. And even though I walk through the hood of death, I don't back down, for You have my back. The fact that He has me covered allows me to chill. He provides me with back-up in front of player-haters, and I know that I am a baller and life will be phat. I fall back in the Lord's crib for the rest of my life.
Um, compare that with this:
The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name' sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, theycomfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.
Jesus, you know my heart.
But what the kcuf is this?
As previously noted, Newsweek, they did the right thing by comin' right out in the first paragraph and acknowledging that Poppa T is white AND middle-aged because this is exactly how I'd expect a white, middle-aged tryin' to be hip man to interpret things. Of course, we first have to get beyond the "things that make one go hmmm" feeling that causes one to wonder what would possess a white man to want to interpret any portion of the Bible in "hip-hop" terms. At the end of the article, the writers mention that there are, of course, critics opposed to altering biblical passages and there are supporters. If this is what happens to scripture in order to reach young people then God help us and them. Lord, seriously, have mercy.
Here comes a contradiction. I have an NIV bible and the KJV. I have been chastised IN church for possessing an NIV bible and having the gaul to bring it into God's house. It was a gift and served the purpose of helping me to edify myself. I grew up with the KJV, and I admit there were certainly times when the shalts, yeas, thees and thous became a bit too much for me to process. But I asked somebody to clarify what was meant. I asked for examples. I have read the NIV version just because it reads, to me, more like a book, and I have long endeavored to read the Bible as such. I think it's possible to just read it, but when there are things I want to investigate, I take it to the KJV because I do believe that each interpretation alters the message. It doesn't necessarily always dilute it, as some would say, but it certainly alters it.
But this. Wow. Once again, I feel like a sharp, sharp line exists between our generation and the very next one. I am not kidding. People 3 years younger than me have issues (there might be a couple of exceptions. A couple.). Even I don't relate to them and we're sharing the same decade right now. Awful.
"He allows me to chill. He keeps me from being heated." I'm not sure where to begin with this. I will go there with you if you were to say, "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside still waters" is dated or whatever, but you have to admit that something is definitely lost all throughout this translation.
The poetry is lost. The 23rd Psalms makes me weep. It gives me goosebumps. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me."
???
That warrants absolutely no interpretation in my opinion. "And even though I walk through the hood of death I don't back down, for You have my back" is atrocious.
The hood of death? That doesn't even go together. It, like, needs more words or something; that "of" isn't cutting it. In fact, based on where I think he's headed with that, I would venture to say that it'd be better were it to say that the hood IS death - the hood that is death. Something. The "You have my back" bit is overkill, as is the reappearance of the word "chill" and "player-haters."
Mags laughed when I read that part. She was like, "player haters?" Finally, the uses of baller and phat. Mercy. Everybody that's into hip-hop isn't a baller, are they? I mean, help me. And I don't know about you, but while there are many things I've wished for my life to be, phat isn't one of them. Like, that doesn't fit either. I just feel like phat applies to material things. Period. Phat house. Phat car. Phat farm. Phat watch. Phat life? No. Phat is a way of life, perhaps, but it doesn't describe life itself.
Alright, it seems I once again can't keep it short, but I feel these past few posts have been decent reading.
Oh, and this is funny. Got my Pandora playing right? In light of this post, I plugged in Rev. James Cleveland -- one of my all-time favorite gospel impresarios, if you will. I am reveling in the old-time goodness that is Rev. Cleveland, Rev. C.L. Franklin, Pastor Shirley Caesar, Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, the Original Five Blind Boys of Alabama, Aretha's Amazing Grace album (astounding!) and up comes the resoundingly bright stylings of The Beatles' Good Day Sunshine.
Tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor.