Details

ISBN-10: 0226819167
ISBN-13: 9780226819167
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publish Date: 05/16/2022
Dimensions: 9.00" L, 6.00" W, 0.58" H

Street Scriptures: Between God and Hip-Hop

Paperback

Price: $27.50

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.”

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Reviews
"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'
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Details

ISBN-10: 0226819167
ISBN-13: 9780226819167
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publish Date: 05/16/2022
Dimensions: 9.00" L, 6.00" W, 0.58" H
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