Critical Approaches to Hip-Hop and Religion Unit
Hip Hop, at its worst, is mindless entertainment set up by elite C-suite males who only care about streams, likes, and bottom-line sales. So many critics and artists of the culture are not from the culture or representative of the culture–just more seeking fame and recognition. Hip Hop culture is much more complex than just making money and selling records. Hip Hop culture is a lifestyle, an ideology, a cultural movement; it is a voice, message, & creative space for many and it has now seen its 50th year alive. We are seeking papers, presentations, and/ or roundtables that engage the essence of true Hip Hop culture and the scholarship surrounding it. We are seeking a variety of areas that could be studied or engaged with. Such as:
- Hotep Culture & Hip Hop
- Conservative Hip Hop geopolitics
- Rappers for Trump
- Drake & His Sensibilities (examination)
- Beef and Battling in Hip Hop Related to Religion and Culture (this could be an actual event & show)
- Who Gets to “Gatekeep” in Hip Hop Culture?
Papers and presentations are invited that address/discuss the intersection between Hip Hop and Religion and any of the following key albums and/or cultural events:
There are several key anniversaries in 2025 (this list is selective NOT exhaustive):
- 40 years: Albums (1985): Run DMC (King of Rock); LL Cool J (Radio); Schooly D (Schooly D); Mantronix (The Album); Grandmaster Flash (They Said It Couldn’t Be Done); Too $hort (Players); UTFO (UTFO); The Fat Boys (The Fat Boys Are Back) Kurtis Blow (America).
- Events (1985) - “We Are the World - Single, USA for Africa; Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party; Lebanon hostage crisis; South Africa ends its ban on interracial marriages; FBI brings charges against the suspected heads of the five Mafia families in New York City; Live Aid benefit concerts in London and Philadelphia for famine relief in Ethiopia; DNA is first used in a criminal case to name a few.
- 30 years - Albums (1995): Smif-N-Wessun (Dah Shinin’); The Roods (Do You Want More?!!!??!); Too $hort (Cocktails); Master P (99 ways to Die); DJ Quik (Safe + Sound); 2Pac (Me Against The World); E-40 (In A Major Way); Big L (Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous); ODB (Return to the 36 Chambers); Mobb Deep (The Infamous); Masta Ace INC (Sittin’ On Chrome); Grand Puba (2000); Raekwon (Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…); Junior M.A.F.I.A. (Conspiracy); Tha Dogg Pound (Dog Food); GZA (Liquid Swords); Company Flow (Funcrusher).
- Events (1995): WTO is established; Oklahoma City Bombing; Internet becomes fully privatized; OJ Simpson found not-guilty of the Murders of Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ron Goldman; Million Man March; end of Operation Desert Storm;
- 20 Years - Albums (2005): Game (The Documentary); Sage Francis (A Healthy Distrust); 50 Cent (The Massacre); Mike Jones (Who Is MIke Jones?); Quasimoto (The Further Adventures of Lord Quas); Common (Be); Kanye West (Late Registration); Little Brother (The MInstrel Show); DANGERDOOM (The Mouse & The Mask); Lil Wayne (The Carter II).
- Events (2004): North Korea announces its possession of nuclear weapons; YouTube launches; Kyoto Protocol goes into effect; Pope John Paul II dies; Live 8 to end world poverty; Hurricane Katrina makes landfall, killing over 1,000 people and doing 108 billion in damage; Kanye West - “George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People”;
- 10 years - Albums (2015): Rae Sremmurd (SremmLife); Joey Badass (B4.Da.$$); Drake (If You're Reading This It’s Too Late); Big Sean (Dark Sky Paradise); Ghostface Killah & BADBADNOTGOOD (Sour Soul); Freddie Gibbs (Pronto); Kendrick Lamar (To Pimp A Butterfly); Tyler, The Creator (Cherry Bomb); Wale (The Album About Nothing); Action Bronson (Mr. Wonderful); Earl Sweatshirt (I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside: An Album by Earl Sweatshirt); A$AP Rocky (At. Long. Last. A$AP); Lil Dirk (Remember My Name); Vince Staples (Summertime ‘06); Dr. Dre (Compton); Travis Scott (Rodeo); Andy Mineo (Uncomfortable); Drake & Future (What A Time To Be Alive); J Dilla (Dillatronic); Logic (The Incredible Story).
- Events (2015) - Racially motivated shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church; Donald Trump announces his run for POTUS; US Supreme Court upholds same-sex marriage; Pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli is revealed to be the winner of the auction of the single copy of the Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, valued at $2 million.
- the intersectionality of Hip Hop, religion, and politics with special consideration of the emerging diversity of political stances being embraced by hip hop artists
- exploration of the ways Hip Hop can encourage both creative freedom and political freedom. This conversation seems especially fitting given the location of the conference in Boston and other Massachusetts communities that have served as intellectual epicenters for transcendentalism, free thought, and artistic pursuits of all kinds throughout American history. In what ways do the creative impulses of Hip Hop perpetuate the legacy of free thought through the application of musical artistry to reflections on political and social issues?
- the ways Hip Hop address the different meanings of “freedom” in the black and white experiences of American history. Can Hip Hop reframe the American story for minority voices and help us all understand the complexities and ironic costs of “freedom” when some peoples’ ability to enjoy freedom depends on others’ inability to access the benefits of freedom?
This Unit’s purpose is to provide a space for interdisciplinary, sustained, scholarly reflection and intellectual advancements at the intersections of religion and hip-hop culture. We believe the Unit will assist religious and theological studies to take more seriously hip-hop culture, while expanding the conversation of hip-hop culture beyond a thin analysis of rap music. To these ends, this Unit is marked by an effort to offer critical reflection on the multiplicity of the cultural practices of hip-hop culture. We also see something of value in advancing the field of religious studies through attention to how hip-hop might inform these various disciplines and methods. Understood in this way, scholarly attention to hip-hop will not transform it into a passive object of the scholar’s gaze; rather, through our attention to hip-hop, it also speaks back to the work of the AAR, offering tools by which to advance theory and method in the field.