​Pop Music Spirituality

Rap/Hip-Hop Page


I am Human, Nothing can be Alien to Me

I'd Like to Hear Your Voice in My Ear

I'd Like to be a Rainbow in Your Cloud


"Please share with me the music you love, so that can know a little of what it feels to be you."
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Process Image of a Wide Soul
Bernard Loomer, early process thinker

"By S-I-Z-E I mean the stature of [your] soul, the range and depth of [your] love, [your] capacity for relationships.  I  mean the volume of life you can take into your being and still maintain your integrity and individuality, the intensity and variety of outlook you can entertain in the unity of your being without feeling defensive or insecure.  I mean the strength of your spirit to encourage others to become freer in the development of their diversity and uniqueness.  I mean the power to sustain more complex and enriching tensions.  I mean the magnanimity of concern to provide conditions that enable others to increase in stature."  (Bernard Loomer)

Unpacking Loomer's paragraph

​1.  Capacity for Loving Relationships: A fat soul enjoys range and depth in its capacity for loving relationships, helping others to become freer in their diversity and uniqueness.  It is open-hearted.
2.  Open-Mindedness: A fat  soul can understand a variety of outlooks on life without feeling defensive and insecure.  It is open-minded.
3.  Openness to Complexity: A fat soul has the power to sustain complex relationships and enriching tensions.  It does not lapse into either-or thinking but is inclined toward both-and thinking.
4.  Tolerance for Enriching Tensions: A fat soul can live with enriching tensions without being overwhelmed.  It does not flee from constructive conflict.
5.  Personal Integrity: A fat soul does all this while maintaining a sense of integrity.  It sticks to its principles and enjoys a sense of individual freedom.
6.  Individuality: A fat soul does not lose its agency or self-creativity.  It celebrates diversity and delights in uniqueness, and it enjoys unique agency itself.

Excerpt from WEB Du Bois

"And so by fateful chance the Negro folk-song -- the rhythmic cry of the slave -- stands to-day not simply as the sole American music, but as the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side the seas. It has been neglected, it has been, and is, half despised, and above all it has been persistently mistaken and misunderstood; but notwithstanding, it still remains as the singular spiritual heritage of the nation and the greatest gift of the Negro people." (WEB Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folks)

What is the meaning of rap/hip-hop for a college student in Arkansas?

Some Pioneering Wide Souls 
who speak to the role popular music, emerging out of African and African-American culture, plays in religious life.

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Barbara A. Holmes
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James Cone 1936-2018
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WEB Du Bois (1868-1963)

The Ring Shout:
beginnings in slavery

The Mother of Rock:
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
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Remington Harris, fifth from left

Eight Themes in Rap 
and their "Process" Connections


Creativity, Improvisation and Novelty: The Many Become One and are Increased by One
Transgression: Novelty and the Crossing of (Specious) Boundaries, for pleasure and transformation
Romanticism: Hope for Harmony, personal and social 
Erotic Power; Reclaiming the unity of mind and body, Whitehead's withness of the body,
no mental without the physical experience, even in God
Prophetic Imagination: Availability of fresh possibilities for social critique and hope (Walter Brueggemann)
Storytelling; the universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects; everything has and is a story
Experiencing the Numinous (through sound): the power of emotions (subjective forms), appreciation for "the depths"
Communitas (ritualized collective Joy in liminal states): Self-Enjoyment in Community with others, includes shared suffering as well as shared joy
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Open Horizons