Street Scriptures: Between God and Hip-Hop

by Alejandro Nava

Overview

This book explores an important aspect of hip-hop that is rarely considered: its deep entanglement with spiritual life.
 
The world of hip-hop is saturated with religion, but rarely is that element given serious consideration. In Street Scriptures, Alejandro Nava focuses our attention on this aspect of the music and culture in a fresh way, combining his profound love of hip-hop, his passion for racial and social justice, and his deep theological knowledge. Street Scriptures offers a refreshingly earnest and beautifully written journey through hip-hop’s deep entanglement with the sacred.
 
Nava reveals a largely unheard religious heartbeat in hip-hop, exploring crosscurrents of the sacred and profane in rap, reggaeton, and Latinx hip-hop today. Ranging from Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, Lauryn Hill, Cardi B, and Bad Bunny to St. Augustine and William James, Nava examines the ethical-political, mystical-prophetic, and theological qualities in hip-hop, probing the pure sonic and aesthetic signatures of music, while also diving deep into the voices that invoke the spirit of protest. The result is nothing short of a new liberation theology for our time, what Nava calls a “street theology.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226819167
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	05/16/2022
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Alejandro Nava is professor of religious studies at the University of Arizona. He is the author of The Mystical and Prophetic Thought of Simone Weil and Gustavo Gutiérrez, Wonder and Exile in the New World, and In Search of Soul. He has discussed hip-hop and religion on NPR, Fox News, HuffPost Live, and MSNBC, among other outlets.
 

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 A Street Theology 25

Between God and Hip-Hop

Chapter 2 A Brief Sonic History of Hip-Hop 43

Chapter 3 Prophets and Emcees 75

Righteous Rappers

Chapter 4 The Return of God in Hip-Hop 109

Kendrick Lamar's Street Theology

Chapter 5 The Dirty Latin South 139

Breaking, Reggaeton, and the Rise of the Global South

Chapter 6 Native Tongues 169

Notes 197

Index 229

Editorial Reviews

"Nava introduces an intervention into the excesses and shortcomings of two of the major theological movements of the 20th century: Latin American liberation theology and Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theology of beauty, the via pulchritudinis. He notes how liberation theology underdetermined beauty as a suspicious distraction from social justice, while the theology of beauty, in liturgy and beyond, overdetermined beauty through a fixed cultural lens. . . . This erudition and range make the book’s most compelling case for itself."

America Magazine

"A stylistically playful yet materially serious examination of public theologies done from and for the margins. Any courses focusing on the intersection of 'faith/theology' and 'culture' would benefit from Nava’s work."

Religious Studies Review

"Nava explores the connections between religion and hip-hop, revealing the overlooked theological roots of the genre and its potential to change the world."

"What We're Reading" US Catholic Magazine

Nava’s writing pulses with passion—electric, vivid, joyful, and oh so readable. By immersing the reader in the music, Nava offers the most compelling lens available on exactly how hip-hop created a moral aesthetic that moves people to change the world. Street Scriptures is social criticism of the highest order.

Jonathon Kahn

"With this majestic study, Nava reclaims ‘the streets’ as a living, breathing text, through which black and brown youth transmute everyday terror into spiritual beauty and hurl truth on the doorsteps of power. By placing academic theology and urban hip-hop culture side by side, Nava’s work has the potential to usher both into a more liberating future.

Onaje X. O. Woodbine

"A stylistically playful yet materially serious examination of public theologies done from and for the margins. Any courses focusing on the intersection of 'faith/theology' and 'culture' would benefit from Nava's work."-- "Religious Studies Review"

"Using examples from current hip-hop artists, as well as popular artists from the past, Nava passionately describes the blending of religion, politics, culture, and aesthetics in hip-hop music."-- "Reading Religion"

"Nava explores the connections between religion and hip-hop, revealing the overlooked theological roots of the genre and its potential to change the world."-- "US Catholic Magazine, "What We're Reading""

"Nava introduces an intervention into the excesses and shortcomings of two of the major theological movements of the 20th century: Latin American liberation theology and Hans Urs von Balthasar's theology of beauty, the via pulchritudinis. He notes how liberation theology underdetermined beauty as a suspicious distraction from social justice, while the theology of beauty, in liturgy and beyond, overdetermined beauty through a fixed cultural lens. . . . This erudition and range make the book's most compelling case for itself."-- "America Magazine"

"In this compelling work, Nava reads the radically subversive 'street scriptures' of hip-hop as a distinctive form of urban liberation theology. This elegantly argued book by a scholar and activist is an important contribution to the study of urban religion and of 'religion' itself in one of its most powerful and challenging contemporary instantiations."--Robert Orsi, author of 'History and Presence'

"Nava's writing pulses with passion--electric, vivid, joyful, and oh so readable. By immersing the reader in the music, Nava offers the most compelling lens available on exactly how hip-hop created a moral aesthetic that moves people to change the world. Street Scriptures is social criticism of the highest order."--Jonathon Kahn, author of 'Divine Discontent: The Religious Imagination of W. E. B. Du Bois'

"With this majestic study, Nava reclaims 'the streets' as a living, breathing text, through which black and brown youth transmute everyday terror into spiritual beauty and hurl truth on the doorsteps of power. By placing academic theology and urban hip-hop culture side by side, Nava's work has the potential to usher both into a more liberating future."--Onaje X. O. Woodbine, author of 'Black Gods of the Asphalt: Religion, Hip-Hop, and Street Basketball'

From the Publisher

In this compelling work, Nava reads the radically subversive ‘street scriptures’ of hip-hop as a distinctive form of urban liberation theology. This elegantly argued book by a scholar and activist is an important contribution to the study of urban religion and of ‘religion’ itself in one of its most powerful and challenging contemporary instantiations.

Robert Orsi

Using examples from current hip-hop artists, as well as popular artists from the past, Nava passionately describes the blending of religion, politics, culture, and aesthetics in hip-hop music.

Reading Religion