Hip-hop trend adding young congregants to churches

The melding of religion and the energy of the culture helps to spread the word.

BY TANIA PADGETT | Newsday Staff Writer

June 22, 2006

Rapper Kurtis Blow participates in a hip hop service at Greater Hood Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church in Harlem on Thursday, Jun. 8, 2006. Blow is one of the founders of the Thursday night services aimed at bringing more young people back to the church. In addition to Harlem, he has collaborated with ministries in the Bronx, Los Angeles and Philadelphia to spread the word. (Photo by Jori Klein)

The Rev. Timothy Holder, 51, is about the last person people would associate with the rough-and-tumble world of hip-hop.

The white, Harvard-educated Episcopalian priest is a mild-mannered, bespectacled fellow with a plump face, merry eyes and a genial Tennessean lilt that seems to melt like butter among the bodacious New York City accents that surround him.

He's also openly gay.

"When you look at me, you see a whole lot of hip-hop, right?" said Holder, his laugh tinkling with mirth. "God clearly has a sense of humor."

If not that, surely a creative one. Holder is among the new leaders to emerge in the fast-growing, underground movement of holy hip-hop, a melding of religion, primarily Christianity, with the energy, lingo, dress and dance moves of the culture. The approach, created to attract young people and hip-hop fans, has produced a number of fledgling churches across the country, several traveling rap ministries, numerous Christian rap artists, a couple of awards shows and plenty of Wrath of God-like discussion from Long Island to the Bay Area.

Many traditional religious leaders seem hesitant to embrace the approach, while others reject it outright, because of hip-hop's hell-bent (pun intended) fixation on sex, drugs and violence. Nevertheless, the movement is gaining traction as people such as Holder, whose street name is Poppa T, and a slew of hip-hop artists bring a message of God to a generation searching to embrace spirituality on its own terms.

"Hip-hop and religion is huge," said Bikari Kitwana, who is writing a book on the subject. "There is an entire generation that has grown up on hip-hop, so it just makes sense that that generation would express its spirituality in the culture that it has grown up in."

Hip-hop culture started more than 30 years ago when African-American teenagers growing up in the trash-choked streets and burned-out buildings of the South Bronx began expressing themselves through graffiti, rap music and break-dancing. In the beginning, the lifestyle focused on partying, social ills and romance, but as it moved into the mainstream, it became misogynistic, homophobic and profanity-laced invective.

Pop in spiritual expression

Collaborations of religion and hip-hop go back almost 20 years, experts say, and is part of an even older trend of pop culture as an instrument for spiritual expression. Rock-inspired religious services abound, such as the "U2 Eucharist," a fusion of Episcopalian liturgy and the music of Irish rock band U2. Then there is Dharma Punx, Bhuddism inspired by punk rock and Judaism emboldened by rap.

In the last 10 years, holy hip-hop has spread as more young people pour into churches, log onto related Web sites and snap up Christian rap CDs, industry experts say.

Advocates of the movement are rushing to meet the demand. Kurtis Blow, who shot to fame as the first rapper to release an album for a major label in 1980, spends his Thursday evenings rapping and spinning turntables at the Greater Hood Memorial AME Zion Church in Harlem. Blow, 46, who is studying to be a pastor, has helped launch at least five hip-hop churches or services such as the ones celebrated at Holder's church.

And in Freeport, the Rev. Emanuel Felder, 38, pastor of Felder Ministries, perhaps the only hip-hop church on Long Island, is looking to open other churches in Chicago and Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and launch a record label.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, former performer Christopher Martin, better known as Play of defunct rap duo Kid 'n Play, and partner Eddie Velez juggle several budding holy hip-hop enterprises, including a local television and radio show, and a Web site - holy hiphop.com.

Martin, 43, who also has produced "Holy Hip Hop," a DVD documenting the rise of holy hip-hop, spends most of his time traveling across the country lecturing teenagers about education.

Martin and Velez also have compiled holy hip-hop CDs of various artists that are distributed under the EMI Gospel label and sponsor an annual awards show. Martin, who also starred in the "House Party" movies, acknowledged that his new life is far less lucrative but much more fulfilling.

"It's not about the money," said Martin. "It's about spreading the word."

But not everybody is fond of the way the "word" is being spread.

"The hip-hop culture in its origin is demonic," according to the Web site of the Rev. G. Craige Lewis, founder of Ex Ministries in Fort Worth, Texas. "And its foundation is set upon a doctrine that is contrary to the Word of God."

Lewis has produced more than a half dozen CDs and DVDs on the ills of hip-hop, and he criss-crosses the country speaking at churches, colleges and civic centers.